One of my main criticisms of liberalism is that it demonizes anybody that dares to disagree with the conclusions that liberals theorize. Either one is a liberal, or they are an imbecile, evil, or in rare cases such as George W. Bush, both. Feelings trump facts, emotions trump evidence, and loud screaming displaces logical reasoning.
When Timothy McVeigh committed the Oklahoma City bombings, Senator Dianne Feinstein claimed that we needed more gun control, even though guns had nothing to do with this atrocity.
When Bill Clinton received illegal campaign contributions from Asian donors who skipped town (a pattern his wife is now repeating), the left claimed that we needed more campaign finance reform.
What the left either willingly or inadvertantly refuses to concede is that more solutions in the form of laws do not work if the underlying premise for enacting the laws is flawed.
Unfortunately, the pattern is continuing on the left today in the form of the environmental movement. Senator Barbara Boxer is blaming global warming for causing everything from the San Diego wildfires to a supposed decline in polar bears.http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/polar_bear_pandering.html
I am not an expert on environmental matters. I freely admit my knowledge base on the subject is paper thin, with apologies to those who hate paper because it comes from dead trees. What bothers me is that when I question aspects of those who consider themselves environmentalists, I am treated as a dunce. If I am so wrong, why get angry with me? Why not answer my questions in a sincere manner? Why not allow debate from those who know more than me and disagree with the conclusions of some environmentalists?
Like many republicans, I am not anti-environment. I am just not willing to destroy all human and animal life to save the environment. Trees matter, but so do people. It is nto that the right hates nature. It is that the left is so hades bent on saving nature that they often disregard any human consequences.
Simply put, the Greeniacs do not allow for debate. The issue is open and shut, especially on global warming. The problem is, it is not. Stifling debate is not the same as consensus. Shouting people down or insulting them is not the same as being right.
In the spirit of Socrates, I have several questions.
First of all, does global warming exist? I have no idea. I am not a scientist. Some scientists say yes, and some say no. Some say that the scientists saying no are not “serious” scientists. The question is then, who gets to decide what makes some scientists more serious than others? Are the ones saying that global warming does not exist all quacks? Do they not have college diplomas, much less advanced studying of this subject? I am not educated enough on this issue to be definitive, but I am educated enough to know that trying to invalidate those that disagree with others is a sign of a lack of confidence in one’s own argument. I suspect reasonable and educated people dispute this issue. It is not beyond dispute at all, far from it.
Even if global warming exists, which I cannot concede, what causes it, man or nature? Again, I have no idea. What I do know is that those on the left insist that humans are killing the planet, and those who question this are relegated to the back of the little yellow bus reserved for “special” children. Can a 14 year old girl spraying mousse in her hair really be raping the planet? Isn’t that a little extreme?
In the 1970s it was global cooling. We were headed towards an ice age. The Greeniacs maintain that the technology we have now allows us to be more accurate. I can accept that on many subjects, we know more now than we do then. That is reasonable. However, absolute truth does not exist with regards to this question. Maybe nothing any human being is doing is causing this problem. Plenty of things that harm this planet on some level are completely not preventable. Earthquakes are not caused by human beings. As of now, there is nothing any living person can do to prevent an Earthquake. Yes, we can take actions to minimize the damage, but the Earthquake itself cannot be stopped. What if global warming fits into this category? Is a person an uneducated baboon for even pondering this as a reasonable question? I would say that this is not the case.
The third question exists if and only if the answers to the first two disputed questions are accepted with a ringing affirmative declaration. Can human beings do anything to stop global warming? The third question actually contains a fourth question…should we care?
Now this line of thinking makes liberals go apoplectic. How can we not care? What kind of horrible people do not care about global warming? How can we not do something? We have to do something. We cannot just sit idly by and do nothing.
Actually, yes we can. Possibly, and I stress possibly, yes we should.
Liberals love to take swift action on many issues because it feels good to say that one are “doing things.” On many issues, reasonable people believe that doing nothing is a perfect solution. On economics, many respected economists believe governments should do absolutely nothing, and let the economy do what needs to be done. Keynesians believe in activist intervention, with higher taxes. Supply Siders such as myself favor lower taxes. Yet some economists favor just taking a nap and leaving everything alone. These economists are not imbeciles.
Some people believe in doing nothing with various global conflicts. We are doing nothing with regards to conflicts between India and Pakistan. In fact, America made things worse when an ancient San Francisco dinosaur known as the Pelosiraptor decided to inject herself into a conflict between Turk and Armenians. Rather than minding our own business with regards to a conflict that…like global warming…may have occurred (there is much argument on this subject) almost a century ago, we chose to “do something,” and exacerbated conflict in the Turkish region of the world.
Although liberals are often hostile towards business, decisions need to be made in a cold, businesslike fashion, removing human emotion as a calculation component. If we decide that global warming exists and is caused by humans, can combatting it be done without humanity paying too high a price? Destroying the global economy is too high a price. Since America is the leader of that economy, destroying America is tantamount to destroying the world. That may not lways be the case, but it is now. Enacting the Kyoto Treaty, and other treaties where China and India are exempt, forces America to unilaterally destroy itself financially. It seems that liberals love unilateral action except when it is positive for America, such as removing bloodthirsty tyrants like Saddam Hussein.
Should Americans recklessly try to destroy the environment? Of course not. No rational person favors ruining the Earth. However, liberals actually characterize conservatives as people who enjoy raping the environment, which is almost as insulting to conservatives as it is to rape victims. I wonder why liberal feminists never condemn this language.
What I do know is that Hollywood celebrities that spout off are not any more informed than I am. If the scientists do not agree, anybody can line up behind any scientist. Al Gore may turn out to be right. For those who have just had their jaws drop, I am not saying he is right. I am saying he very well one day could be. However, his winning an Academy Award contributes nothing to the debate. The Academy are not scientists. They are artists. His winning a Nobel Peace Prize is even less relevant. It was not a science award.
I have often said that those giving out Oscars and Nobels are simply liberals rewarding liberals. It would be like me giving an award to somebody for reinforcing my opinions. These awards are given by people who do not even try to hide their ideological biases. Science is only effective if it is unbiased. Otherwise it is tainted. It is one thing to show bias in terms of who to give a film award to, regardless of quality or facts. It is another to let medical or scientific studies be flawed. That is how people die, and drug companies spend millions on studies, with true “double blind” studies having the most credibility. Science can produce clear unambiguous results, but while the results do not need to be neutral, the methods used to get to the conclusions must be neutral.
Neutrality is only valid if it is honest neutrality, which brings us to the concept of being carbon neutral, in the form of carbon “offsets.” The way it works is this. Al Gore flies around on private jets. This is supposedly bad for the environment. He is a “Lear Jet Liberal.” To avoid this label, he pays other people to be more environmentally friendly in their own lives, therefore negating, or offsetting, his negative contribution.
This is ludicrous. If I pay 10 people to not kill anybody, can I go then kill 10 people and claim neutrality? Of course not. How can killing the Earth, if that is what people are doing, be any better? Some would argue that Al Gore’s message is so important, and his stature so high, that he needs to break the rules to educate people on how to obey them. How is that leading by example? It isn’t. It is hypocrisy. Gore could be environmentally positive by encouraging others to obey the rules and obeying them himself. Of course, this assumes that the problem exists, people caused it, and we could and should attack it.
What separates normal people from crusaders/zealots/activists is the idea that disagreement is heresy. I do not condemn people for being vegans. If they believe it is healthier, more power to them. All I ask is that they not yell “meat is murder,” when I am trying to eat a burger.
Many conservatives do not hate liberals. We just want them to shut up and sit down. We want them to leave us alone and let us live our lives. Most importantly, we want the right to engage in legitimate socratic debate without being pilloried.
At no time in this column have I definitely stated that the Greeniacs are wrong. They could be. I am simply openminded.
Being closeminded is sometimes acceptable. Questioning that 2 + 2 = 4 is beyond debate. Questioning that terrorists crashed into the Towers on 9/11 is fact. The sun does rise in the East and set in the West. There have been tests, retests, and finally accepted conclusions. It is permissible, and logical, to be closeminded on issues that truly are beyond dispute.
Global warming and other environmental issues could be in that category one day. Not to frighten the liberals, but the conclusions could be the opposite of what they now suspect, in the same way that they were wrong about global cooling. Technology is constantly evolving, and who knows what is beyond the horizon?
The world has a finite amount of some resources, including money. It is one thing to spend money to wage a war against an enemy that wants to destroy the world. Preserving all of humanity from Armageddon is a reasonable expenditure. Reasonable minds can disagree on the approach, but not whether preserving civilization matters. Yet spending enough money to cripple the global economy through treaties and other anti-business methods for a possible situation is what separates rational people from screaming Deaniacs…in this case Greeniacs.
Intelligence involves developing an argument so strong it cannot refuted. The null hypothesis is rejected, and the alternative hypothesis reigns supreme. Rather than declare the debate over, the left should have the courage of their convictions (shouting and screaming is not courage) to be willing to test those convictions. No scientist wants to find their life’s beliefs invalidated, but that is the price to pay for having more accurate scientific results. The science has to supersede the scientists. This is anathema to liberals, because liberalism is about the people, not the ideas. Right versus wrong is meaningless, because the ideological agenda is what matters, not the consequences.
Liberals need to unclench their teeth long enough to have spirited but honest debate.
The truth, with a very small “t,” is that the Greeniacs, like most liberals, do not want to accept the real truth…that their theories…everything that they believe in…could…very…well…mean…that…the…Greeniacs…could…possibly…be…wrong.
eric
Beyond Belief
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, January 20, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Climate Change: Despite years of media bombardment about the imminent dangers of global warming, the alarmists are losing ground. Fewer Americans are buying into the myth.
According to a Rasmussen poll, 44% of U.S. voters blame long-term planetary trends for the (perceived) global warming; only 41% say human activity is responsible.
Those are far different numbers than Rasmussen recorded less than three years ago. In July 2006, Rasmussen found that a mere 35% believed the cause of warming to be part of a natural cycle, while 46% said humans were culpable.
It’s also starkly different from a poll taken last April, when 47% said man was to blame and 34% said long-term global trends were the cause. Since that survey was taken, Rasmussen says, “the numbers have been moving in the direction of planetary trends.”
These numbers support the findings of a 2008 survey that questioned 12,000 people across 11 countries. It found only 47% willing to change their lives to cut emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. A year earlier, 58% said they would be inclined to change their lives to cut CO2 emissions.
That survey, commissioned by financial institution HSBC and environmental groups, also revealed that last year 37% admitted they were willing to increase the time or effort they put into cutting carbon emissions, a drop-off of 8 percentage points from 2007.
The waning faith in the church of global warming seems to have sent one of its apostles into a near panic. James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is saying that time to save the planet from a blistering-hot, ice-cap-melting, sea-rising doom is running out.
“We have to get on a new path within this new administration,” he told the British Observer. “We have only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take the lead.”
Hansen can’t admit it because he has staked his name and reputation on the notion that man is causing Earth to warm. But once the raw emotion and partisan bias are stripped — 59% of Democrats blame global warming on man vs. only 21% of Republicans — there’s nothing for the U.S. to lead on.
Unless, of course, the country was to lead the rest of the world into an age of true enlightenment about climate change. That’s a campaign we can get behind.
128 Comments
Jersey McJones said,
November 5, 2007 at 12:24 pm
“…apologies to those who hate paper because it comes from dead trees.”
Though it all originates from dead trees to some degree, more and more paper is recycled today (much of it abroad because of the cheap labor crowd and their “Free” Trade). Eventually, the vast majority of paper will be recycled, from what I’ve heard.
“Like many republicans, I am not anti-environment. I am just not willing to destroy all human and animal life to save the environment. Trees matter, but so do people. It is nto that the right hates nature. It is that the left is so hades bent on saving nature that they often disregard any human consequences.”
I’m sorry eric, but this makes absolutely no sense. We ARE the environment. Animals, people, trees, water, air – everything is interconnected. We are a part of the environment, and a very large part as we are the most ubiquitous and successful advanced species in the history of the planet.
You have to try to understand that the environmental left does not discourage debate about global warming and such, as long as it is free and honest (not paid for by conflicted interests and lied about). What we want, however, is to hedge our bets. We should not ignore the possibilities of the future. Conservative thinking would not have taken us to the moon, or brought us genetic science. You have to think outside the box. You have to imagine what might be to discover what is and what will be. And if there’s one sector that should force conservatives to get what I’m saying, it’s the private sector.http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/22/news/economy/pluggedin_gunther.fortune/index.htm
“Marsh (Charts), the world’s largest insurance broker, last spring sent a 36-page “risk alert” on Climate Change to clients that, among other things, looked at the possible relationship between climate change and natural disasters.
“Climate change – often referred to as ‘global warming’ – is one of the most significant emerging risks facing the world today, presenting tremendous challenges to the environment, to the world economy, and to individual businesses,” the report said.”
“AIG (Charts), the giant global insurer, issued a statement on climate change that says it “recognizes the scientific consensus that climate change is a reality and is likely in large part the result of human activities that have led to increasing concentrations of the greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere.””
Now certainly you do not believe that mega-insurers are “Greeniacs!” Perhaps they are profiteering, but they certainly have never shown a penchant for appeasing the wants of the Left. The private sector reacts to demand. Sometimes they create demand, but without some real and natural market want, the private sector can only create so much. If these guys are saying that Anthropogenic Global Warming is real, then you conservatives should listen up. We can debate the nuances of the issue all you like, and there is plenty to debate about, but there is no good reason not to act. We have nothing to lose. If the demand comes, then we’ll be ahead of the game, if it doesn’t, then the capital will simply flow elsewhere. But to ignore the issue because of ostensible debates on the details would be to put on blinders and get caught behind should real drastic change ever occur. Why not just act while we talk, rather than just talk? These are not mutally exclusive courses.
We know from everything from the Bible to our parents that littering and polluting the Earth is morally and ethically wrong. There’s nothing wrong with creating markets from this demand to clean up existing indutries With tax credits and a little investment, it would not hurt said indutries as well. But intertia is a fact of the universe so unless change is forced, intertia will prevent change. We should wait until it’s possibly too late to act. That would be stupid. A smart invester hedges his bets. He doesn’t throw all his eggs in one basket and hope for the best. Given the odds as of now, the temporal progressivity of science and climate study, we’d be very foolish indeed not to take this risk and turn it into capitalistic opportunity, rather than ignore the risk and miss the opportunity. Any true capitalist (yes, I AM a capitalist, just not of the American lunatic fringe variety) should get what I’m saying.
JMJ
micky2 said,
November 5, 2007 at 12:26 pm
This game has been going on since I was a hippie in the 60s and 70s and we were convinced that you were helping the enviroment if you bought those sandals that had the soles that were made from old tires.
It became as big as the smiley that said ” have a nice day”
Well, those sandals still had to get thrown out at some point also.
I remember when the “is it safe to drink the water?” scare happened. Consequently millions of people started buying bottled water. Nobody has died from tap water yet. And the bottled water business turned into a billion dollar industry.
A couple months ago it was all over the news. The two top selling waters are nothing but tap water.
I can buy my own filter and bottle it myself and cast away my worries about bad water, and dont have to worry about the trash impact on the earth. ( Which is totally blown out of proportion)
Will we see that happen? Probably not. Because the corporations know that they can scare us into buying anything, for whatever convuluted reason they come up with.
I told all those people then that they were fools and I was right.
Scientist who oppose the mass hysteria on this subject being thats being driven by the liberal media are subjected to loosin funding for not jumping on the wagon.
In an op-ed piece http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220 written soon after the release of An Inconvenient Truth (by Nobel-Prize winner Yassar — oops, Albert Gore) the distinguished climate scientist Richard Lindzen of MIT had this to say:
The very commonplace — indeed, cliche — environmental tactic on any dissenting scientist these days is not to address the actual science. That would be too much like rational discourse. It is, rather, to lambaste the source of funding.
Well, turnabout is fair play.
As Mr. Lindzen notes in the above-quoted passage, government-employed, government-funded scientists depend entirely upon politicians for their funding. Science, then, which by definition is supposed to be an objective discipline, is instantly politicized. Ultimately, the money comes from the taxpayers. Science becomes a thing of consensus.
Thus, government-funding makes science political and non-objective.
That is why, instead of rational debate and scientific inquiry, we’re subject to the endless lobby campaigns, the endless invectives, the endless personal smears against any scientist who dares to do her job — i.e. question and investigate — and that is why there is this overwhelming authoritarian cry we now hear: “Silence! The debate is over.”
antisocialist said,
November 5, 2007 at 2:41 pm
The majority of paper most emphatically does not come from recycling, Mr. McJones, but from pulpwood farms.
Pulpwood is specifically grown for paper, and that is why this notion that forests are “mowed down” to produce paper is a complete fiction. It’s more environmental mythology. The only places where forests are mowed down to produce paper are in non-developed countries, which is exactly the type of places that environmentalism wishes to force us all into.
Mandatory recycling, moreover, as its very name implies, ignores the law of supply and demand. That is why so much recycled paper is ultimately landfilled. When, for instance, New Jersey “passed legislation that required every community in the state to recycle, the recycling rate for newspapers jumped from 50 percent to 62 percent. This, in turn, created such a glut that the price of newsprint fell $45 per ton to minus $25 per ton!” (Facts not Fear.) You read that correctly: recyclers had to pay $25 per ton for someone to haul the newspapers away.
In Europe, where the recycling craze has really run amok, the German government (e.g.) required businesses to take back from customers and recycle all forms of packaging, including bottles, cans, containers, cartons, and sacks. In no time, the (nonprofit) company that collects and sorts the items was $412 million in debt, and the government admitted that tons and tons of the material would be landfilled anyway, because there wasn’t enough demand for that kind of supply.
As Doctor William Rathje (of the University of Arizona, and arguably the world’s foremost scientist on rubbish) points out in his excellent book Rubbish, “paper accounts for 40 percent or more of landfill volume. There simply isn’t a market for this amount of recycled newspaper. Nor are enough mills to process all the paper that could be collected. In addition, de-inking newspaper, which is necessary in order to recycle it, creates a potentially toxic sludge, which sludge, toxic or not, must somewhere be landfilled” (William Rathje, Rubbish).
But there’s more: As Lynn Scarlett of the Reason Foundation points out, environmental laws anent recycling could conveivably “eliminate the one-pound coffee ‘brick-packs’ you now find in retail stores. These packages hold the same amount of coffee as metal cans, but weigh less than one-third of traditional metal cans, and they take up little space. Recycled-content laws would force the use of cans instead.”
But there’s more, much more: “There is no shortage of landfill space, not remotely. All the trash produced by the United States for the next one thousand years could fit into a landfill forty-four miles square by 120 feet deep—one tenth of 1 percent of all this country’s entire land area.” (“A Consumer’s Guide to Environmental Myths and Realities,” Policy Report #99, National Center for Policy Analysis, Dallas, TX, September 1991, 3, quoting Clark Wiseman of Gonzaga University.)
But there’s more, much more: Transporting recyclables to processing plants requires separate collection trucks, and producing the finished goods consumes energy and causes pollution, just as production of paper from wood does. (”In Los Angels, recycling laws meant that instead of four hundred garbage the city needed 800, and LA already has an air pollution problem” Facts not Fear.) Also, the trees that will allegedly be “saved” are, as intimated earlier, those that are planted specifically to make a pulpwood paper. “More recycling reduces the incentive to maintain and plant such tree farms” (ibid). As Doctor Clark Wiseman again wisely points out, “if paper recycling reaches 40 percent (it is about 30 percent right now), demand for paper from trees would fall by about 7 percent, and owners will be forced to convert their land for other uses than tree growing.” Added to which, because recycling so often requires more labor and more energy to produce, recycled products are often more expensive.
When recycling makes sense—and it does with things such as scrap steel and aluminum cans—it makes sense not because of resource scarcity, which is not a problem, nor because extracting the resources will irreparably harm the environment (it won’t), but because it is economically sound to do so. Businesses in free market countries exist to recycle these products. And they’ve existed for many, many decades, long before the environmental craze swept across the country like a plague. It’s one of the millions of examples of how free-markets take care of themselves. Furthermore, no one, in these instance, is forced to save recyclables, or to take them away.
Force is the opposite of freedom. Coercion, be it direct or indirect, is the only way to violate freedom.
Coercion is what environmentalism espouses.
One other very crucial factor you must never forget, Mr. McJones: nothing is ever recycled until it is sorted, collected, re-manufactured, and, most important of all, resold. If a re-manufactured product sits on the shelf until it is taken down and thrown away – as so much of these products are – it is not recycled. On the contrary, it’s been a far greater and far more costly waste than if it had just been landfilled to begin with.
That is where your government intervention gets you. For starters.
But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
Moving on to your wild assertion that there are different “styles” or “varieties” of capitalism, be it lunatic-fringe style, or moderate style: this is an absurd and demonstrably false notion. Capitalism, by its very definition, means free trade. That is all. That’s what capitalism is. It means that government stays out of commerce and industry, just as government stays out of religion, and for the exact same reasons. There is no middle ground to that: it’s either capitalistic, or its opposite: interventionist.
Which means mercantilist.
Which means protectionist.
“Capitalism is the economic manifestation of freedom” (Fredrick Bastiat).
“Capitalism is individual rights applied to the science of production and exchange” (George Reisman).
Capitalism, by definition, is “a network of free voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at” (Capitalism Versus Statism, Murray N. Rothbard).
The crux of capitalism, and thus freedom, is private property.
The only alternative to private property is communal ownership or governmental ownership, which is precisely what environmentalism advocates.
Communal ownership and government ownership are also called socialism. That, by definition, is what socialism is.
As a political philosophy, environmentalism is in every significant way indistinguishable from socialism. Indeed, as many commentators have noted, such as Patrick Moore, one of the cofounders of Green Peace, “environmentalism is repackaged Marxism.”
Socialism, as you presumably know, at least implicitly, is the opposite of capitalism.
Thus, if there is government intervention, it is, to that extent, not capitalism.
Regarding your own espousal of the precautionary principle, it’s not only anti-freedom — it’s deadly and dangerous, as the DDT fiasco more than demonstrates, to the tune of ten million and counting, or the Alar fiasco.
As the French heat-wave deaths also demonstrate. To wit:
The bulk of the victims—many of them elderly—died during the height of the heat wave, which brought suffocating temperatures of up to 104 degrees in a country where air conditioning is rare.” (Robert Bindinitto, “Death by Environmentalism”).
This prompts an obvious question: Why is air conditioning so rare in a technologically sophisticated country like France?
In an interview, Michaels told me that a major reason is the impact of environmentalism on government energy policy. To address the alleged threat of global warming, France, along with the rest of the European Union, has imposed steep energy taxes in order to reduce energy consumption. As a result, Michaels explained, energy costs to consumers in France are about 25 percent higher than to consumers in the United States. At the same time, average incomes in France are considerably lower than those in America, which, in relative terms, makes electricity there all the more expensive.
Sure enough, the high energy taxes have worked exactly as the environmentalists planned: they have reduced energy consumption. Seeking ways to cut their electric bills, French citizens realized that air conditioners consume more energy than almost any other household appliance. For the poor and the elderly, especially, air conditioning simply became unaffordable. So, by the millions, they decided to forgo the amenity that environmental taxes made so expensive. Air conditioning, so universal in America, became in France an indulgence of the well-to-do. As Chantal de Singly, director of the Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris, put it in Le Monde (August 19, 2003), the heat wave revealed two classes of French citizens: “the France of the air conditioned versus the France of the overheated.”
So, to address the purely hypothetical risks of possible future global temperature increases that might average a few piddling degrees, the greens imposed energy taxes that made it impossible for many of its most vulnerable citizens to protect themselves against the foreseeable and preventable impact of a summer heat wave.
However, in the green campaign against energy consumption, the fatalities caused by French environmentalists do not begin to rival those caused by their American blood brothers
Please stay tuned …
micky2 said,
November 5, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Jeeez
antisocialist said,
November 5, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Some final thoughts, if Eric will allow me to overwhelm his comment box, on Mr. McJones’s precautionary principle concerning global warming:
On October 19th, 2007, the Rocky Mountain News ran an op-ed piece entitled “Al Gore’s ignoble Nobel,” by Denver talkshow host Mike Rosen. Five days after that, a rebuttal appeared.
This rebuttal, “Mostly wrong on warming,” was written by a scientist named Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.
In turn, Dr. Trenberth’s article was rebutted by a man named Christopher Monckton, third Vicount of Benchley and Former Advisor to Margaret Thatcher. Mr. Trenberth’s article did not appear in the Rocky Mountain News; it was published on the Science and Public Policy website: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/23errors.html
Mr. Monckton, who, like Mike Rosen, is not a scientist, then appeared as a guest on Mike Rosen’s radio show, to discuss in greater detail what he calls the “swindle” of global warming.
It should also be noted that Dr. Trenberth was invited on the program to debate the issue with Mr. Monckton, but, as you might suspect, Trenberth declined – and did so, according to Mike Rosen’s producers, none too politely.
Among global warming alarmists, it’s become somewhat vogue to criticize the “credentials” of anyone, scientist and non-scientist alike, who disagrees with the catastrophic scenarios. Turnabout, as mentioned above, is only fair play.
“There is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.”
As Doctor Lindzen notes in the above-quoted passage, government-funded scientists depend entirely upon politicians for their research money. Science, therefore, which by definition is an objective discipline, is instantly politicized: i.e. science is made non-objective.
Science becomes a thing of consensus – which by definition means that science is no longer science.
Instead of rational debate and scientific inquiry, we’re subject to these endless lobby campaigns, these endless invectives, these endless personal smears against any scientist who dares to do her job — question and investigate — and this is the reason we now hear the constant authoritarian cry: “Silence! The debate is over.”
This kind of ad hominem attack is many things, but science is certainly not one of them. Nor is it going to get the world to a better place, as Mr. McJones imagines.
If you doubt my words, observe what Dr. Kevin Trenberth himself says in his Rocky Mountains News response: “Gore’s statement that ice-sheets melting in Greenland or the West Antarctic would raise sea level by 20 feet is correct, although it was misleading that he did not put a time-frame on this.”
Ask yourself: why didn’t Gore put a time-frame on it?
The answer: a twenty foot increase would, all things remaining equal, take millennia.
As Dr. Trenberth himself once stated: “… temperatures would have to remain 5.5 degrees Celsius higher than today’s for several millennia before the Greenland ice sheet would lose even half of its ice. The Greenland ice sheet has in fact recently thickened by 2 inches per year – a total of 20 inches in 10 years” (Johannesen et al., 2005).
Is that, as Dr. Trenberth says, merely “misleading” on Gore’s part?
Or is it an outright prevarication?
Dr. Vincent Gray, a New Zealand scientist who recently resigned from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where he had served as an expert from its inception, left because, in his words, “the world will slowly realize that the ‘predictions’ emanating from the IPCC will not happen. The absence of any global warming for the past 8 years is only the beginning. The whole process is a swindle. The IPCC from the beginning was given the license to use whatever methods would be necessary to provide evidence that carbon dioxide increases were harming the climate even if this involves manipulation of dubious data and using people’s opinions instead of science to prove their case.”
I wrote Dr. Kevin Trenberth a number of emails in which I asked him, among other things, why he’d declined Mike Rosen’s invitation to debate this issue on-air. His response, which came very rapidly, did not surprise me: he said that he’d been tied up in meetings that day, but more than that, these men, according to him, have no scientific credentials – which lack of credentials did not, however, preclude his original Rocky Mountain News response to Mike Rosen’s article. Nor, for that matter, his rather strident support of non-scientist Al Gore and Al Gore’s famous non-scientific melodrama: An Inconvenient Truth.
Dr. Trenberth, whom I paraphrase here for reasons I will make clear in a moment, also, in our email exchange, intimated that any non-scientist, no matter how erudite the person may (or may not) be, by virtue of being a non-scientist, is simply not qualified to raise objections to global warming scenarios.
Thus, we who are not scientists must simply take on faith what these men and women of “science” tell us, regardless of their politics, or their fraudulent premises.
What about the actual scientists who disagree with the alarmists?
I named a few of these thousands upon thousands to Dr. Trenberth – such as Dr. William Gray – and Trenberth, as you would also suspect, immediately called into question the “credentials” of such people. Dr. Gray, I was told, is “long-retired” and, anyway, has been “reprimanded by CSU.”
There is, in other words, no way for anyone, scientist or not, to debate the global warming alarmists. We must simply accept what they say without public discussion or debate.
Now that’s what I call convenient.
The following, however, is more convenient still:
When I asked Dr. Kevin Trenberth if I could quote our exchange, his response to me – and I’m paraphrasing, of course –was an unequivocal, no, you may not quote me from our exchange.
One is strangely reminded of W.H. Auden’s lines: “The blessed don’t care what angle they’re regarded from, having nothing to hide….”
You should realize also that environmentalism’s goal of global limits on carbon dioxide and other chemical emissions, as called for in the Kyoto protocol and certain other treaties, easily lends itself to the establishment of world-wide central planning with respect to a wide variety of essential means of production. Indeed, an explicit bridge between socialism and environmentalism is supplied by one of the most prominent theorists of the environmental movement, Barry Commoner, who was also the Green Party’s first candidate for President of the United States. The intellectuals, who insist that man must be forced to live for others and now for “the environment,” have kept the monstrous philosophy alive. It is a philosophy of slavery, and bandwagon thinking is what propogates it: the unanalyzed, unquestioned acceptance of environmental platitudes. We must, for instance, “save the planet” by carpooling and recycling. This is where your precautionary principle gets you.
The precautionary principle is Pascal’s famous wager applied to environmentalists. It is thus equally as absurd.
If socialism had died, the entire world, including the Third World, would now be moving toward unprecedented economic progress and prosperity.
Instead, the elitist intellectuals, who live off the fruits of technology, progress, and, in a phrase, free-market capitalism, have chosen to foist the doctrine of environmentalism onto the world, so that the Third World cannot develop but must (so say the intellectuals) be kept in grinding poverty, replete with disease and death — all because our “jeopardized planet” demands it, and because corporations are evil, and because, anyway, the elites say so. The environmental elites are the new socialist rulers.
This is the government that the people have turned to for ’social justice’; for protection and aid, in the form of labor and social legislation; for reason and order, in the form of government ‘planning.’ This is the government that has implemented progressive income taxation and inheritance taxation; minimum wage laws and maximum-hour laws; laws giving special privileges and immunities to labor unions; antitrust legislation; social security legislation; public education; public housing; socialized medicine; nationalized or municipalized post offices, utilities, railroads, subways, and buslines; subsidies for farmers, shippers, manufacturers, borrowers, lenders, the unemployed, students, tenants, and the ‘needy’ of every description. This is the government that has implemented food and drug regulation, building codes and zoning laws, occupational health and safety legislation, and more. This government has created arbitrary money and abolished the gold standard — to make possible the inflation of the money supply without limit. They have, in short, created over fifty thousand new laws and countless other regulations, which have swept across the country and the world with the force of a tidal wave, so that the concept of self-ownership, self-governance, and limited government seems antiquated to all but a handful who understand what’s at stake; thus, any mention of individual rights, the recognition of which is the only way for humans to actually live prosperously and freely, is now considered out-of-date. Yet if human freedom is ever to be won, it is only through the recognition of each individual’s absolute right to his or her own life and his or her own property that will accomplish it.’
Please think about that the next time you call from “more government involvement just in case, because, after all, what could the harm be?”
The harm is the piecemeal abolition of private property and, hence, freedom.
greg said,
November 5, 2007 at 3:06 pm
As one of the resident Greeniacs on this blog who has worked on environmental law and policy issues for pretty much all of my adult life and from a number of different perspectives, there is SO much I’d like to respond to here, but, alas, I’ll start with only a few.
First, and this is I think the first time I’ve ever had occasion to say this, micky2 is right: science is indeed political and very much a product of society and culture, whether funding comes from government or private industry. And the issues that get raised about so-called scientific issues often get clouded when the politicians and the rest of society get involved. Global warming is a perfect example of that, and both sides of the issue are guilty of making broad sweeping generalizations and trying to arrive at a simple solution to what is really a very complicated problem.
Here’s where I see the problem of global warming, and it is very similar to eric’s. There are four aspects to the issue and both sides tend to conflate them into one, which just doesn’t work very well.
First, there is the question of whether global warming in fact exists. On this point, there really is no debate. Even the global warming skeptics like Bjorn Lonberg and Fred Singer admit that the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere is currently rising and has been for a number of years. And everyone agrees that global warming, regardless of its cause, is cyclical and rises and falls over time.
Second, there is the question of whether humans have caused global warming. This issue is probably the most misunderstood of the four. Again, there is little or no debate on the question of whether human activity causes global warming; even the skeptics agree here, too, that certain human activities do cause global warming. What gets confused is the fact that human activity is not the sole cause of global warming, nor is it even the biggest cause of global warming. However, the overwhelming majority of scientists agree that the additional insertion of greenhouse gases from human activity is responsible for the significantly higher rate of global warming that is taking place today.
Third, there is the question of “so what?” What are the potential impacts of the kind of global warming we are now seeing? What does this all mean? And on this question there is a great deal of scientific debate, as well there should be. So we see debates among prominent, respectable scientists debating the impact of global warming on hurricanes, for example, or what impacts will we see from melting polar ice caps. Without the benefit of prior experience with these kinds of issues, and given the complexity of the questions in issue and the scientific disciplines they cross, it is only natural that there is healthy debate on this question and like I said before, that is a very good thing.
Fourth, there is the question of what do we do about it. And this is really as much a political question as it a scientific one. And here is where we get into such issues as carbon trading, GHG reductions, hybrid vehicles, and a host of other kinds of ideas, some of which will be good ones and some of which will be bad ones, and most of which will need to be fleshed out and developed and refined over time.
So the frustration by us Greeniacs is that too many people are focused on focused on questions 1 and 2 and therefore refuse to engage in healthy and productive debate on questions 3 and 4 where we really need it, particularly on number 4.
And then we hear people like eric contradict themselves in the same paragraph, when he says: “Many conservatives do not hate liberals. We just want them to shut up and sit down. … Most importantly, we want the right to engage in legitimate socratic debate without being pilloried.” Eric, you can’t engage in legitimate socratic debate by telling the other side to shut up and sit down.
And then we constantly get hit with minor points that get raised beyond the level they’re entitled to as a way of obfuscating the real issues. Yes, global cooling was discussed briefly in the 1970s and even made it onto a magazine cover or two, but it never reached anywhere near the scientific consensus that global warming has. Yes, Al Gore flies in airplanes. The issue is not that humans have “to destroy all human and animal life to save the environment,” as eric says. No one criticized you for flying on September 11 just to make a political point (well, at least I don’t think anyone criticized you) and no one is really asking everyone to destroy their life to save the planet. That kind of false argument doesn’t move things forward.
I do want to comment on why giving the Nobel Peace Prize for work on global warming was a good thing. Many people have questioned what global warming has to do with peace, but when you think about it, it has everything to do with peace. Wars are fought over land, nations or people either wanting more of it or to protect some other nation or peoples from taking theirs. It’s not just the dirt they are fighting over – it’s what the land can do for them that is important, be it fertile land to grow food to sustain them, or the existence of clean water to drink, or animals to hunt. As global warming changes the landscape, perhaps by drying up what was once fertile land, or flooding out cities built next to an ocean that rises, conflict will arise as nations contend for usable land to replace what they have lost. That’s why the US Department of Defense declared in a report issued in 2003 that global warming was a bigger threat to American national security than terrorism.
greg said,
November 5, 2007 at 3:18 pm
It’s hard to take antisocialist seriously but what he did say about paper is partially true. “The majority of paper most emphatically does not come from recycling,” which, of course, is not what JMJ said. Anyway, like JMJ said, the amount of recycled paper is increasing as industry deals with issues such as bleaching and ink, but the entire paper industry is in a downhill slide as the demand for all kinds of paper is diminishing.
antisocialist also says it is an “environmental myth” that forests are “mowed down” to produce paper. No it’s not. Environmentalists who know anything about forests know that they get mowed down not so much to produce paper but to increase the amount of land for agriculture and mining. Amazonian rainforests were not destroyed to create paper so much as to provide for cattle and soy. Another large source of dwindling forestry is for extractive industries such as mining and oil production, for example in the Canadian and Russian boreal.
Cobalt said,
November 5, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Here’s a short response.
blacktygrrrr said,
November 5, 2007 at 3:35 pm
I am beyond pleased with the debate today. This is exactly why I began blogging to begin with. Anyone can hurl insults, but I much prefer an intelligent civilized debate.
Let’s keep things on the high brow, and we will all grow richer intellectually.
eric
micky2 said,
November 5, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Greg said;
“That’s why the US Department of Defense declared in a report issued in 2003 that global warming was a bigger threat to American national security than terrorism.”
This is a complete falsehood
The US dept of defense did not say that, it was one of many declarations in the report made up of many different opinions and statistics.
That Greg was just one of a couple hundred contributions to the report that said that.http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=PentagonClimateChangeReport&scale=2#PentagonClimateChangeReport
December 2005: Exxon-Funded Organization Publishes Book on Climate Change The George C. Marshall Institute publishes a book titled, Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming. In its press release announcing the book, the institute says the book “demonstrates the remarkable disparities between so-called ‘consensus documents’ on global warming… and climate reality.” The book, edited by longtime climate contrarian Patrick Michaels, a meteorologist, features essays contributed by Sallie Baliunas, Robert Balling, Randall S. Cerveny, John Christy, Robert E. Davis, Oliver W. Frauenfeld, Ross McKitrick, Eric S. Posmentier, and Willie Soon. Michaels is affiliated with at least ten organizations that have been funded by ExxonMobil and the Marshall Institute has received some $630,000 from ExxonMobil in support of its climate change program (see Between 1998 and 2005). [George C. Marshall Institute, 12/14/2005; Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, pp. 12
The US dept of defense did not declare this Greg, one of the contributing reports did.
Oh and by the way , Greg !
We have proof and results of terrorism being a threat, while you are scared of something that hasn’t even happened yet.
Has gerbil warming affected our nations security one iota as much as terrorism ?
Not! I didn’t think so. ( I found the report)
Part of it was put forth by Peter Schwartz, who just hosted a special on CNN questioning if Al Gore really deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.
He mentioned the questions but did nothing to confront or answer them.
The report was not written by the pentagon, it was written for the pentagon by outside consultants. The pentagon commissions reports about a virtually endless list of “scenarios,” including (as mentioned above) scenarios in which we invade Canada. 3) The people who wrote the report are not scientists. Peter Schwartz is a “futurist,”, a scenario-dreamer-upper for Global Business Network, and the author of a pre-dot com-bust book The Long Boom. Amazon review: Among its predictions are a formulation of a “glass pipeline” that seamlessly tracks manufacturing and production processes, creation of a volunteer Global Corps to aid developing nations, the dawning of a true Space Age, and the birth of a unified worldwide society with “well-off people who share certain values that are transcending borders.” Heh heh heh. Doug Randall is another scenario-dreamer-upper with Global Business Network. In short, both these dudes are science-fiction writers, not scientists.
This is the conniving we see in the part of the enviromentalist, lying by omission of the truth.
arclightzero said,
November 5, 2007 at 4:10 pm
interestingly, this was my topic of choice today as well, although I have been looking at environmentalism from a different perspective lately.
First off, there is a big problem with debate and environmentalism. It annoys me to no end that the consensus in the green community is that the debate is over and that there can be no other viewpoint. (especially if it contradicts the popular opinions of the greenies). I recently wrote a post on the topic of why people on the right (like myself) hate Al Gore. My rationale counters the overwhelming opinion from the left and the greenies that we hate the environment and are more concerned with money and helping out billionaires than with the Earth. Rather our beef with Gore and the pop-culture environmental movement is that they refuse to listen, they refuse to discuss, and when confronted they simply call anybody who carries a different opinion “sheep” who blindly follow the republicans. I agree with Eric here that we don’t hate the environment but we need to keep this environmental craze in check.
Second off, I am growing increasingly concerned that the line between pop-culture environmentalism and radical environmentalism (coincidentally, my topic of today) is growing increasingly thin. Yes, we can talk about recycling and deforestation until we;re blue in the face. We can talk carbon offsetting, hybrid cars and renewable energy… We can all be concerned with being more green and saving the environment. But as this sort of talk leads from one thing to another, I fear we are starting to see more people crossing the line into radicalism. The current rhetoric that we are getting from the mainstream environmentalists is that we are not doing enough is starting to drive people over the edge.
While there is no harm in trying to capitalize on the whole “green thing’” (lord knows I have invested in companies that are involved in renewable energy and green products), but things left unchecked and without debate like they currently are is dangerous. We are allowing for the creation of a radical movement that could make radical Islam look tame if we don’t start clamping down on this runaway environmentalism train.
deaconblue said,
November 5, 2007 at 4:17 pm
I find all of this somewhat humorous. I get a kick out of the whole “the debate is closed” type arguments, or the minimizing of any sort of dissent (from either side). It’s an entertaining bit of melodrama, with no real appreciable resolutions to be had.
“Global Warming/Cooling” is a debate that is a cyclical as the arguments. You can track back for about 100 years the alternating scares. It runs in 20-25 year cycles, with the scare switching between warming and cooling. The science has always been “correct” each and every time, with “consensus” agreeing to what ever it is at the time. You can track this in just the front pages of the NY Times (back to about 1880), and in the Times of London (back to about 1870), as well as in other publications.
This is all about money folks. Doesn’t matter which side you are on, or what you believe. It’s about who stands to gain, not only economically, but politically as well. You cannot at this point, separate the politics from the science. They are so interwtined at this point, that one “taints” the other.
antisocialist said,
November 5, 2007 at 4:20 pm
greg wrote: > It’s hard to take antisocialist seriously
And yet …
greg wrote: > but what he did say about paper is partially true.
I thank you for deigning to respond. It means a great deal to me, really, especially considering the source. Out of curiosity, have you yourself ever read the seminal work on the subject of garbage, the encyclopedic Rubbish? Or how about this brief article: http://www.ecoworld.com/home/articles2.cfm?tid=340?
greg wrote: > The majority of paper most emphatically does not come from recycling,” which, of course, is not what JMJ said.
“Of course,” you say?
JMJ wrote: > more and more paper is recycled today…. Eventually, the vast majority of paper will be recycled
greg wrote: > the entire paper industry is in a downhill slide as the demand for all kinds of paper is diminishing.
Well, not all kinds (of course). I suspect you will find this hard to take seriously, but there has, for instance, never been a greater demand for books — because there’s never been so many books published; because the demand for books has skyrocketed this past decade. It is, however, true that paper can be made these days without any wood at all, made possible by an evil little thing called technology, which environmentalism is (of course) statedly opposed to. Anyway, this “downhill slide,” as you elaborately call it, is the law of supply and demand at work, i.e. the free-market, which is precisely what the antisocialist advocates. The division-of-labor and the profit motive both ensure progress and the continual advancement of technology. That is how human civilization advances, certainly not through government regulations, strangulations, controls, and your vast environmental land-grabs and mandatory conservation measures.
greg wrote: > antisocialist also says it is an “environmental myth” that forests are “mowed down” to produce paper.
In developed countries, yes. And that’s true. Are you saying that in this country our forests are mowed down to produce paper? Are you aware that the latest satellite imagery shows, quote, “our forests are growing, and this despite greater timber harvests”? Or as the Council on Environmental Quality put it: “Trends in net annual timber growth show that the net annual growth of softwoods and hardwoods combined increased by 18 percent between 1952 and 1962 and another 14 percent between 1962 and 1970. This trend has steadily increased through 2005, and the increase is the result of expanded forest fire control, tree planting, and, most of all, measures from the foresters themselves.” (U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, p. 315. Emphasis mine.)
greg wrote: > Environmentalists who know anything about forests …
Which most of them do not. To wit: “History now shows us—as the math did then, but was ignored, of course, in favor of a more pessimistic viewpoint—that in the late 1980s, predictions that the world’s rainforests would ’soon’ be eliminated way overshot the mark. The famous statement made by biologist Norman Myers, which sent environmentalists everywhere scurrying to their soapboxes, that ‘2 percent of all tropical forest was being destroyed per year,’ and that by ‘2000 we will have lost a third of the world’s tropical forest’ (Myers cited in Goudie 1993:46.), has proved disgustingly inaccurate. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) puts tropical deforestation in the 1980s at 0.8 percent. In 2001, satellite imagery, which is precise, shows that tropical deforestation had declined to 0.46 percent” (Ultimate Resource). “Lack of property rights—i.e. private property—makes tropical deforestation worse.” Says your previously quoted Bjorn Lomborg.
greg wrote: > [forests] get mowed down not so much to produce paper but to increase the amount of land for agriculture and mining.
You’re talking about forests in non-developed or developing countries, which I specifically (and seriously) addressed. The United States is not third-world; that’s precisely the point, in fact.
greg wrote: > Amazonian rainforests were not destroyed to create paper so much as to provide for cattle and soy
“Were not,” you say? In fact, however — your conspicuous past-tense usage notwithstanding — when, in 1996, the World Wildlife Federation told us that Amazonian deforestation “increased by 34 percent since 1992,” we were understandably surprised to learn a year later that they did not tell us that the rate had fallen by over 50 percent, the second lowest amount since monitoring began, nor that the real estimate for 1999-2000 was about 17 million hectares, or, in other words, just below 0.5 percent per year. “In actual fact, overall Amazonian deforestation has only been about 14 percent since man has arrived. At least some three percent of this 14 percent has since been replaced by new forest” (Faminow 1999. See also Fearside, p. 1991, and The Skeptical Environmentalist p. 114-115). None of which of course addresses the fundamental issue here. And that is this: since when have government bureucrats ever proved themselves more capable of property allocation than private stewardship?(No doubt, you are familar with the “tragedy of the commons” and the principle at work behind it.) Nor does it address why I or anyone else should, to use your words, “take seriously” a movement guilty of so much proven prevarication and outright distortion.
Jersey McJones said,
November 5, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Hey, the Tygrrrr chimed in!
Antisocialist,
As Greg said, I never said that the majority of paper comes from recycling. Please don’t put words in my mouth. As Tygrrrr said, “Let’s keep things on the high brow…”
I just happen to know a little about paper recycling because I worked for many years in the container line industry, and waste paper for recycling is a major American export. Waste paper is a big, albeit marginal, business. But as they say – if there’s money to be made…
Onto Global Warming – Okay, if the insurance sector doesn’t sway you how about this?http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39927
“WASHINGTON, Nov 5 (IPS) – Global climate change, if left unaddressed, is likely to pose “as a great or a greater foreign policy and national security challenge than any problem” the United States currently faces, according to a major new report released here Monday by two influential Washington think tanks.
Under a worst-case scenario, that nonetheless remains “plausible” given the latest scientific estimates, climate change’s impacts on global stability “would destabilise virtually every aspect of modern life,” according to the conclusions of a task force assembled by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS).”
This is a report just out today. There are studies coming from every direction, everyday, showing clearer and clear evidence that AGW is a real problem and must be addressed. Why people think this is just gloom and doom is beyond me. What ever happened to the great American entrepreneurial spirit? Capitalists should be grabbing this baby by the horns and figuring out ways to make some money making the Earth a clearer and safer place to live.
And it’s not just paper that’s mowing down the forests. The huge mistake known as Ethanol is also causing problems. Ever wonder where Brazil got all that cane and soy from?http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0516-ethanol_amazon.html
Read my link and you’ll note that deforestation of the Amazon has been and continues to be one the rise both in rates and real numbers.
JMJ
micky2 said,
November 5, 2007 at 6:15 pm
J said;
“But intertia is a fact of the universe so unless change is forced, intertia will prevent change”
FORCED ?
Inertia promotes its own change, its called the movement of man as a society to go on to invent need by reason of demand. We have always come up with alternatives via the free market as opposed to “FORCE” which is the exact opposite of freedom.
Js link said;
Global climate change, if left unaddressed, is likely to pose “as a great or a greater foreign policy and national security challenge than any problem” the United States currently faces, according to a major new report released here Monday by two influential Washington think tanks.
Once again this is where debate is useless unless the word “LIKELY is taken out.
It is “LIKELY” that terrorist will blow us all up, but not probable.
Also, the link that jersey provides are nothing but alarmists on the highest level.
Check out the third paragraph in this left wing enviro publishing.
“The only comparable experience for many in the group was considering what the aftermath of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear exchange might have entailed during the height of the Cold War,” according to the 119-page study, “The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change.”
What ? Thats just plain alarmist fear mongering. I found another one just like that, here.
“Climate change could have global security implications on a par with nuclear war unless urgent action is taken, a report said on Wednesday,” Jeremy Lovell of Reuters wrote on September 12. Lovell didn’t include any expert skeptical about climate change or its near-nuclear impact on the globe.
Also, the link that jersey provides are nothing but alarmists on the highest level.
Check out the third paragraph in this left wing enviro publishing.
“The most recent international moves towards combating global warming represent a recognition … that if the emission of greenhouse gases … is allowed to continue unchecked, the effects will be catastrophic — on the level of nuclear war,” the IISS report said according to Reuters.
If you read anything on the link its full of words like “MIGHT”
“MAYBE”
“PROBABLY”
“SUGGEST”
“PLAUSIBLE”
“Under a worst-case scenario, that nonetheless remains “plausible” ”
“The rising temperatures and sea levels that are caused by climate change will probably ”
“The more severe scenarios suggest the prospect of perhaps
And then theres this dead give away. ( with the word “potential”
“Global warming has the potential to destabilise the world,” said CNAS president Kurt Campbell, who served as deputy defence secretary under President Bill Clinton. “In my view, this will quickly become the defining issue of our age.”
We have an old Clinton devotee in the works, so now we immediatly have politics in the mix which makes the whole arguement null and void. And absolutley biased.
Jerasey said;
Capitalists should be grabbing this baby by the horns and figuring out ways to make some money making the Earth a clearer and safer place to live.”
Unfortunatly none of these who are already capitolizing on the green thing could care less about the enviroment.
Its evident for anyone to see that this capitalistic play on our emotions is already in full play, you cant get away from it, its everywhere, dont even get me started.
As far as the Amazon deforestation goes, I see you failed to read the Antisocialists facts on the issue. He list 7 resources that totally displace any credibility your link offers.
They are blaming the US for what “MIGHT” happen on projected scales
micky2 said,
November 5, 2007 at 6:29 pm
I read the link that jersey supplied even further.http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39927
The report, which comes as the Democratic-led Congress has begun moving legislation designed to reduce global warming emissions from power plants, factories and cars by as much as 60 percent under current levels by 2050, is aimed at what Campbell called the “surprising and alarming” lack of knowledge about climate change’s geo-political implications within the U.S. national security community.
Its publication follows the announcement last month that former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will receive the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to raise public awareness about climate change and its possible consequences.
Gee, which side do you think this publication is on ?
Antone who cares to read the article, please do .
It is so obviously bubbling over with politics (especially on the left) it cannot be taken seriously at all.
Gayle said,
November 5, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Like you, I’m no expert on this subject either Eric, and don’t really feel qualified to say much about it, other than the fact that China is adding to the problem much more than we are in North America, so I have to wonder why Gore doesn’t ever mention that? I did a post on it: “Come Home Batman. It’s Not Safe Over There!” Yeah…. I know it sounds weird, but it does come together.
micky2 said,
November 5, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Gayle, Its always Americas fault.
If we didnt buy so many Batman dolls this problem wouldnt be.
This is a list of the 9 most polluted cities in the world.
This planet has bigger problems such as these 9 mentioned which are not being addressed by the green hysteria at all.
Its a corporate/political/treehugger scheme to empty the wallets of Americans
by making us buy a load of products that really in the long run will not do a thing to prevent their intentional and falsely projected armageddon.
the Chinese city of Linfen, located in the heat of the country’s coal region and chosen as an example of the severe pollution faced by many Chinese cities;
Haina, Dominican Republic, the site of a former automobile battery recycling smelter where residents suffer from widespread lead poisoning;
the Indian city of Ranipet, where some 3.5 million people are affected by tannery waste, which contains hexavalent chromium and azodyes.
Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan, home to a former Soviet uranium plant and severely contaminated with radioactive uranium mine wastes;
the Peruvian mining town of La Oroya, where residents have been exposed to toxic emissions from a poly-metallic smelter;
Dzerzinsk, Russia, the site of a Cold War-era chemical weapons facility;
the Russian industrial city of Norilsk, which houses the world’s largest heavy metals smelting complex and where more than 4 million tons of cadmium, copper, lead, nickel, arsenic, selenium and zinc emissions are released annually;
the Russian Far East towns of Dalnegorsk and Rudnaya Pristan, whose residents suffer from serious lead poisoning from an old smelter and the unsafe transport of lead concentrate from the local lead mining site;
and the city of Kabwe, Zambia, where mining and smelting operations have led to widespread lead and cadmium contamination.
You never hear about any of these places with the exception of China.
But America must tow the line, why ?
Because we are being convinced through green propoganda that we are the only ones who can help
antisocialist said,
November 5, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Mr. McJones,
I did not put words in your mouth. In fact, I quoted you exactly: “more and more paper is recycled today…. Eventually, the vast majority of paper will be recycled.”
Is quoting your words what you mean by ‘keeping things on the highbrow’?
You may indeed have worked in a “container line industry,” I don’t know. I myself worked in a recycling plant, and I promise you that if you had any idea how much waste goes on because of mandatory recycling laws, you’d be staggered. You’d be appalled. You’d be ashamed.
McJones wrote: > Onto Global Warming
But you didn’t even address the first issue! We’re moving on far too fast.
McJones wrote: > if the insurance sector doesn’t sway you how about this? http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39927
No, not remotely. Did you know that over the last century, global temperatures have risen about one degree, and that, furthermore, temperatures haven’t risen in about a decade? Did you know that two out of three scientists recently poled in each state of this country don’t believe that global warming is anything close to catastrophic? Did you know that over 17,000 scientists, ranging from climatologists to oceanographers to geophysicists, have signed the Oregon Petition, which declares that “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of . . . greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate”?
Did you know that worldwide, that figure of scientists more than doubles?
Here’s a quote from our brilliant MIT climatologist Richard Lindzen (whom I trust far more than I trust your insurance companies):
There have been repeated claims that this past year’s hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?
McJones wrote: > Why people think this is just gloom and doom is beyond me.
That’s the whole problem: it’s beyond you. Many if not most scientists don’t think this kind of alarmism is at all justified. But if you and greg find me so difficult to take seriously, ignore me, please, and listen to the words of the enviros themselves:
From one of the High Priests of Environmentalism, Stephen Schneider, a “scientist” (and it will be clear in a moment why I put that word in quotation marks) at Stanford University, and also one of the main men at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. This is what he told Discover Magazine:
“On the one hand, as scientists, we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.… On the other hand, we are not just scientists, but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place. To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we ourselves might have….Each of us has to decide” (as opposed to letting the actual facts dictate) “what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” (Discover, p. 47.)
“The ending of the human epoch on Earth” (writes philosopher Paul Taylor in Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics) “would most likely be greeted with a hearty ‘Good riddance!’”
Biologist David M. Graber of the U.S. National Park Services calls human beings a “cancer”; in the same article, he goes on to say: “I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn’t true …Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to return to nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.” (“Mother Nature as a Hothouse Flower,” Los Angles Times Book Review.)
The head of the 1992 Earth Summit asks in all seriousness: “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
“In Los Angles, curbside recycling means that the city had to have eight hundred rather than four hundred trucks to pick up trash. And that city already has an air pollution problem.” (Facts Not Fear, p. 49.)
The ban on CFC chemicals, such as Freon, which is used for refrigeration, has, according to the New York Times, created a huge black market, not unlike the so-called war on drugs. “Law enforcement officials say the refrigerant has become the most lucrative contraband after illicit drugs.” (Judy Edelson Halpert, “Freon Smugglers Find Big Market,” New York Times.)
“In 1980 the late Julian Simon, economist and political philosopher, had, like many of us, grown frustrated with the Malthusian claims which in essence state that, because of population growth, the world is “soon” going to run out of food, oil, and other raw materials. Forget that the Malthusian predictions have never panned out and that Thomas Malthus himself was spectacularly wrong in his more immediate predictions—still the Malthusians keep proclaiming. So in 1980 Julian Simon made a $10,000 bet, open to any takers. He allowed his opponents to choose any raw materials, including grain and fossil fuels, and he wagered that, as long as the material wasn’t government controlled, the item or items chosen would have dropped in price at least one year later. He allowed his opponents also to choose the time of reckoning. [Environmental high priest] Paul Ehrlich, of Stanford University, had written in 1970: ‘I if were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.’ Fittingly, it was this same Mr. Ehrlich, along with two Stanford colleagues, Harte and Holdren, who accepted Julian Simon’s challenge, stating they would ‘accept Simon’s astonishing offer before other greedy people jump in.’ Ehrilich added: ‘The lure of easy money can be irresistible.’ They chose copper, chrome, nickel, tin, and tungsten, and a ten-year period.
“At settling time, in September of 1990, not only the sum of the prices, but also the price of each individual metal had fallen. Julian Simon offered to make the same bet again, at increased stakes, but the Ehrlich group never took him up on his second offer.” (Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2, p. 35-36.)
In 1980, the Global 2000 report predicted that “at least 500,000 to 600,000 species” would become extinct in the next twenty years. We now know that this was not only totally inaccurate, but had absolutely no factual basis to begin with. It was pure guess work, with a very specific agenda. “In the history of the planet earth, species have always come into and gone out of existence. The existing data on the observed rates of species extinction are fatuously incongruous with conservationist claims, as, in 1992, even the sympathetic World Conservation Monitoring Centre conceded.” Quoting their words: “In fact, these and other data indicate that the number of recorded extinctions for both plants and animals is very small….” (Heygood and Stuart 1992 p. 93.)
Here’s a little more (please note the dates):
“I take this opportunity to express my opinion in the strongest terms, that the amazing exhibition of oil which has characterized the last twenty, and will probably characterize the next ten or twenty years, is nevertheless, not only geologically but historically, a temporary and vanishing phenomenon—one which young men will live to see come to its natural end” (1886, J.P. Lesley, state geologist of Pennsylvania).
“There is little or no chance for more oil in California” (1886, U.S. Geological Survey).
“There is little or no chance for more oil in Kansas and Texas” (1891, U.S. Geological Survey).
“Total future production limit of 5.7 billion barrels of oil, perhaps a ten-year supply” (1914, U.S. Bureau of Mines).
“Reserves to last only thirteen years” (1939, Department of the Interior).
“Reserves to last thirteen years” (1951, Department of the Interior, Oil and Gas Division).
“We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade” (Former President Jimmy Carter speaking in 1978 to the entire world).
“At the present rate of use, it is estimated that coal reserves will last 200 more years. Petroleum may run out in 20 to 30 years, and natural gas may last only another 70 years” (1980, Merrill high school textbook Science Connections).
“At the current rate of consumption, some scientists estimate that the world’s known supplies of oil … will be used up within your lifetime” (1993, The United States and its People).
“The supply of fossil fuels is being used up at an alarming rate. Governments must help save our fossil fuel supply by passing laws limiting their use” (1993, Glenco textbook Biology, An Everyday Experience).
(Give particular heed to that last sentence.)
Quotes like these could fill a thousand pages easily. Here, for the hell of it, are a couple more:
The Sierra Club website has this resolution: “State and federal laws should be changed to encourage small families and discourage large families.”
(Government bureaucrats, in other words, should tell us how many children we are allowed to have. As they do in Communist China, for instance. Let it also be noted, however, that this is coming from a group whose founder, Mr. John Muir, wrote in 1894 that the Indians of Yosemite Valley were “mostly ugly, and some of them altogether hideous.” They “seemed to have no right place in the landscape,” and they disturbed his “solemn calm.”)
“The technique is to introduce legislation to achieve some vague, positive-sounding generality, such as ‘worker safety’ or ‘environmental protection’—things no politician will want to go on record voting against. When the legislation is passed and a new regulatory agency is created to enforce it, that’s when the actual decisions are made about what specific restrictions will be imposed and which lands will be removed from human use. Governmental power is passed down to an army of minor bureaucrats who are not accountable to the people and only vaguely accountable to Congress and the president.
“Consider that federal regulatory agencies make thousands of rulings each year, adding about 80,000 pages annually to the Federal Register. Do you think Congress can exercise ‘oversight’ by debating all 80,000 pages of these regulations? Do you think the president, his advisors and his cabinet officers can consider and personally approve all of these decrees? Of course not. By its nature, the federal decree-issuing apparatus cannot be controlled, and it has only one tendency: to impose more regulations and, by filling the federal register with such restrictions, to make private activities like logging grind to a halt.
“These campaigns are proof of the greens’ real motives. They want to stop development and keep the Third World in a state of poverty—while they work to bring the same ideal of poverty to industrialized nations. Most environmentalists embrace this goal, but few dare to admit it openly—so they peddle a variety of ruses to hide their meaning, ranging from ‘sustainable development’ to ‘shrinkth,’ a term suggested by the editor of Earth Island Journal as a less negative-sounding ‘antonym for growth’.”
(Can you guess where that last one comes from? Hint: you agree with them.)
“Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is …” Mr. Albert Gore, ladies and gentleman, Grist magazine.
This tiny set of quotations, culled quickly and more or less at random, doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. If you’d like more, please let me know. I have notebooks full of them.
And so you would have us all now just go along with the latest in envirommental propaganda because you can’t undestand why many of us think it just more, as you say, “doom and gloom”?
Come, now. It hardly takes a genius of induction to learn something vital from so much outright disembling.
McJones wrote: > Ever wonder where Brazil got all that cane and soy from?
No. In fact, my ethanol article appeared months before yours.
McJones wrote: > Read my link and you’ll note that deforestation of the Amazon has been and continues to be one the rise both in rates and real numbers.
Read the FAO stats, which I cite above, and which are based on satellite imagery, as well as the Quality for Environmental Control stats, and you’ll get a clearer picture of actual forest depletion. None of which, incidentally, has anything to do with what I was talking about: namely, pulpwood in this country is specifically farmed for paper. I’m frankly not sure where you and greg got this Amazonian deforestation for mining and agriculture jag.
McJones wrote: > What ever happened to the great American entrepreneurial spirit?
It’s been strangled by mercantilism and interventionism, which you advocate, if you advocate government intervention in the economy. That’s where this great spirit you speak of went. It’s been killed by bigger and bigger government, whether that government is the environmental left or the mercantilistic right. You are, however, correct that the private sector can deal just fine with these “problems” — as long as that sector is left private.
In fact, that is my whole point.
micky2 said,
November 5, 2007 at 10:36 pm
-)
micky2 said,
November 5, 2007 at 10:38 pm
-)
greg said,
November 5, 2007 at 11:24 pm
As for micky2’s comments about the 2003 climate change report, it was commissioned by Andrew Marshall of the Department of Defense. Since 1973 he headed a think tank within the Pentagon whose role was to envision future threats to national security. The DoD’s push on ballistic-missile defense is known as his brainchild. Donald Rumsfeld picked him to lead a sweeping review on military “transformation,” the shift toward nimble forces and smart weapons that was the hallmark of Rumsfeld’s strategic vision. He’s hardly a liberal pansy.
And yes, Schwartz and Randall are futurists, which is good because that was what the report was about – the future. That’s what we need from our governmental planners – vision and hard thinking about what the future holds. It’s better to be proactive than reactive and what would scare me is if no one in the military wasn’t thinking about the future.
The report’s conclusions have also been echoed by others in the defense industry. In March, the U.S. Army War College, again not your namby-pamby liberal front group, funded a two-day conference at the Triangle Institute for Security Studies titled “The National Security Implications of Global Climate Change.” In April, the Military Advisory Board, consisting of eleven senior retired U.S. admirals and generals, including some close advisers to VP Cheney, said much the same thing. Micky2, you may not like what the reports are saying but it’s really hard to deny that our military is paying serious attention to global warming.
What I don’t understand is why there is so much push-back on this issue. You (and I don’t mean to just single you out; it seems to be a widely held view) don’t want to wait for the terrorists to sneak up and destroy us, so we plan for the future. Why is it so hard to get behind the idea that global warming may do the same thing and we should be planning for it, as well? The terrorists may seek to destroy us by a nuclear bomb, they may seek to do it with a nerve gas or a smart bomb, they may crash more airplanes into strategic targets, they may try to assassinate President Bush or any one of a number of possibilities that may happen. I’m sure you wouldn’t suggest we just wait to see if it was certain which one they will try, but to plan for all contingencies. So why is it so difficult to imagine our military doing the same with global warming?
greg said,
November 5, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Gayle said, “China is adding to the problem much more than we are in North America, so I have to wonder why Gore doesn’t ever mention that?” I think Al in fact does mention it.
You’re right, China is a major problem that even they are realizing. I forget who mentioned it but yes, many of the most polluted cities in the world are Chinese and from other countries besides the USA. Kyoto was not perfect by any means and one of the forseeable problems was the fact that emerging developing countries like India and China were not covered by the treaty. That’s why many environmentalists would say that while Kyoto might have been a nice start, it didn’t go far enough.
JMJ is correct in pointing out that insurance companies are among the most impacted industries concerning global warming, and so it should as no surprise that the industry, particularly the reinsurers (the insurance companies that insure the insurance companies) are some of the corporate leaders in global warming policies. So is the global finance industry, so, again, it is not surprising that major global financial institutions such as HSBC, ABN Amro, JPMorgan Chase, Citi and BofA are leaders in global warming initiatives. I have personally worked with all of these institutions on their environmental policies and as they grudgingly began to measure their own carbon footprints and calculate the costs, they discovered something we had been telling them all along: it is very cost-effective to be green. By adopting green building and operational policies within their massive corporate structures, they learned that they could save a whole lot of money and increase their return to their investors.
There is a reason big companies like Wal-Mart are going green. By going green they make more green. As is generally the case in things, if you want to see where environmental trends are headed, FOLLOW THE MONEY!
blacktygrrrr said,
November 5, 2007 at 11:39 pm
I might have to drop by more often…haha.
Greg, I will field your question, since it is valid.
Planning against future threats from terrorism are valid because terrorism has actually happened.
Global warming apocalyptic catastrophes are still theoretical.
Nobody wants to wait for tragedy to say we wish we had acted sooner, but it is much easier to conceptualize future disastrous possibilities when actual atrocities have occurred.
That is just human nature.
eric
micky2 said,
November 6, 2007 at 12:14 am
Greg said;
As for micky2’s comments about the 2003 climate change report, it was commissioned by Andrew Marshall of the Department of Defense.
First of all Greg , this issue goes to both sides of the aisle.
Just as the ethanol hustle was brought upon us after Carter ushered it in on fuel and oil shortage scares in the 70’s;
“We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade” (Former President Jimmy Carter speaking in 1978 to the entire world).
Second of all, I would hardly take the word of a futurist , which is all that Marshall is.
Thirdly, He was brought in by Rumsfeld to brainstorm military strategies, not climate change issues and/or predictions.
He is just about anything but a scientist
His writings are more fit for sci fi movies rather than betting your life on something.
“The key, associates say, is to read the writings of his disciples. Or, as one Marshall friend framed it in a ‘Star Wars’ analogy, study the Jedis to learn the teachings of Yoda.
“One Jedi is Andrew F. Krepinevich, a former Army officer who worked with Mr. Marshall in the Net Assessment Office, a bastion of futuristic brainstorming.
Greg said;
And yes, Schwartz and Randall are futurists, which is good because that was what the report was about – the future. That’s what we need from our governmental planners – vision and hard thinking about what the future holds. It’s better to be proactive than reactive and what would scare me is if no one in the military wasn’t thinking about the future.
With this logic you only make my point for me.
We are talking about something that has not happened yet when the premise is that gerbil warming is a greater threat to our security than terrorism.
When anyone who has been alive at least 10 years knows that terrorism is a real and PRESENT danger that we must deal with today and tomorrow and has been promised in the words of racialist “Is here to stay”
Schwartz and Randall are to science what clairvoyants are to police detectives, so please.
Greg said;
“The report’s conclusions have also been echoed by others in the defense industry. In March, the U.S. Army War College, again not your namby-pamby liberal front group, funded a two-day conference at the Triangle Institute for Security Studies titled “The National Security Implications of Global Climate Change.” In April, the Military Advisory Board, consisting of eleven senior retired U.S. admirals and generals, including some close advisers to VP Cheney, said much the same thing. Micky2, you may not like what the reports are saying but it’s really hard to deny that our military is paying serious attention to global warming.”
“National security implications of global climate change?”
An implication is hardly fact
Greg said;
“So why is it so difficult to imagine our military doing the same with global warming?”
Well, it hasnt attacked our ships , embassies, or flown jets into our buildings and killed thousands of people.
And please don’t throw the natural disasters at me, those were Bush’s fault
Greg, terrorism is fact.
Gerbil warming threats are all predictions.
Greg said;
don’t want to wait for the terrorists to sneak up and destroy us, so we plan Why is it so hard to get behind the idea that global warming may do the same thing and we should be planning for it, as well?
The key word you use is “MAY”.
As opposed to terrorism “HAS” ( on plenty of occasions)
In closing I would like to say that I have no problem with taking care of the planet.
As a matter of fact I would be the first one to advocate it.
But don’t scare me into buying a bunch of crap I don’t need.
micky2 said,
November 6, 2007 at 12:17 am
Uh, the “racialist” mentioned above was supposed to be radicals, talk to my spell check about it.
greg said,
November 6, 2007 at 12:58 am
Antisocialist, again, it’s hard to know where to start here. As I first pointed out and you confirmed, JMJ did NOT say that the majority of paper comes from recycled sources. He said more and more of it comes from recycled sources, which is true, and that the vast majority of paper will be recycled. He’s talking about in the future and I suspect he’s right. It’s certainly the way the industry is moving, even in books. Even when he, too, pointed it out what he said, you still challenged him. Sorry but you’re simply wrong on this point.
As for my elaborately called downhill slide in the paper industry, you’re right on several fronts. Yes, there is a large demand for books, but there is a strong decline in newsprint and other kinds of paper supplies, so overall the industry is having trouble. And yes, it is the law of supply and demand. No surprise there, because the demand for paper is declining.
What you’re wrong about is your description of “an evil little thing called technology, which environmentalism is (of course) statedly opposed to.” Why would you think that? Environmentalism is not opposed to technology. Far from it.
With regard to the “environmental myth” that forests are “mowed down” to produce paper, what I was saying was it’s not an environmental myth that forests are being mowed down to produce paper anywhere in the world because paper is not the problem. Yes, trees are being felled to produce paper but a much greater problem is deforestation caused by other activities, namely agriculture, lumber and extractive industries. And you are right, forestation issues are not as big a concern in the US as they are in other countries, although I’m not sure the issue is between developed and undeveloped countries. Right now, hot spots in forestry issues are found, for example, in Canada, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Australia and China, i.e., a mixture of developed and developing countries.
greg said,
November 6, 2007 at 1:08 am
eric, welcome! I am for sure not saying that we shouldn’t plan for terrorism and while I don’t totally buy it, I appreciate the argument that global warming is less tangible a threat than terrorism. And I suspect you’re right that it is much easier to conceptualize future disastrous possibilities when actual atrocities have occurred.
But so what? Can’t we plan for both? Why do we have to raise the global warming threat to apocalyptic catastrophic levels before we take it seriously?
greg said,
November 6, 2007 at 1:49 am
Micky2, here is what former Army chief of staff General Gordon Sullivan said with regard to global warming:
“People are saying they want to be perfectly convinced about climate science projections. But speaking as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.”
antisocialist said,
November 6, 2007 at 2:23 am
The vast majority of paper will obviously be recycled if recycling is made mandatory. That’s not in question.
More and more paper comes from recycling only because more and more recycling regulations are being put into place. As stated in the very beginning of my comments, and as Doctor William Rathje points out over and over in Rubbish, and as virtually all waste managment specialists agree, “paper accounts for 40 percent or more of landfill volume. There simply isn’t a market for this amount of recycled paper. Nor are enough mills to process all the paper that could be collected. In addition, de-inking newspaper, which is necessary in order to recycle it, creates a potentially toxic sludge, which sludge, toxic or not, must somewhere be landfilled.”
That’s why this push for mandatory recycling laws leads to the gigantic wastes that it does — and not just waste of the actual products, but of the massive amounts of human time and labor and all the energy that goes into the process.
I’m not sure why you’re having so much difficulty taking this seriously, but that difficulty is a serious problem, and not just in this communication between us. I would challenge you, at the very least, to volunteer at a recycling plant for a few weeks. Honestly, it’s not for nothing that garbagemen the world over universally hate the recycling craze.
Most of all, remember this: you can be absolutely sure that if something is cost effective, it won’t need to be subsidized or made mandatory: the market will take care of it in an instant.
Recylcing is not new, greg. On the contrary, it’s as old as humankind herself.
It sounds, however, that as hard a time as you have taking what I wrote seriously, you by and large end up agreeing with what I’ve said.
However …
greg wrote: > Environmentalism is not opposed to technology. Far from it.
My God, can I please quote you on that?
To address your comment and your question, then — “What you’re wrong about is your description of ‘an evil little thing called technology, which environmentalism is (of course) statedly opposed to.’ Why would you think that? (you ask) — I’ll very happily answer that, and do so once again by giving you the actual words of the enviros, so as to avoid our pesky problem of credentials.
Earth First! (EF!), in their own words, “is a warrior society” that takes a “by any means necessary” approach to “defending mother earth.” The group, they themselves say, “declines to participate in the democratic process, preferring instead to damage, disable, and destroy the property of its ever-growing list of enemies: capitalists.”
“Environmental groups the world over, from greenpeace, to Sierra Club, to Sierra Club’s sister group Earth First! have attacked, verbally or physically, the entire industrial world. Targets include, but are by no means limited to, loggers, ranchers, and farmers — especially those who grow genetically modified crops …” (Readers Digest, Robert Bindinitto).
The Sierra Club website has this resolution: “State and federal laws should be changed to encourage small families and discourage large families.”
Government bureaucrats, in other words, should tell us how many children we are allowed to have. As they do in Communist China, for instance.
Have you, greg, heard of the “No Growth Movement”? They, for one, would certainly be willing to debate you that environmentalism is, as you say, for technological progress. In fact, one of their primary tenets is to “revert.”
Private property is the crux of freedom, greg: you cannot, in any meaningful sense, be said to be free if you are not allowed to use the things that you own, including those things necessary to sustain your life. But in the words of one of several environmental groups, “private property is just a sacred cow.” (Greater Yellowstone Report, Greater Yellowstone Coalition.)
“The ending of the human epoch on Earth” (writes philosopher Paul Taylor in Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics) “would most likely be greeted with a hearty ‘Good riddance!’”
Biologist David M. Graber of the U.S. National Park Services calls human beings a “cancer”; in the same article, he goes on to say: “I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn’t true …Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to return to nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.” (“Mother Nature as a Hothouse Flower,” Los Angles Times Book Review.)
Do you call that pro-technology and pro-progress?
And these are by no means fringe environmentalists either.
The head of the 1992 Earth Summit asks in all seriousness: “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
My lord, man. Do you call that pro-freedom and pro-technology?
Do you know who Dave Foreman is? He’s one of the founders of Earth First! and also has deep ties with Sierra Club, as mainstream as environmentalism gets. “Dave Foreman, in his book Ecodefense: A Field Guide To Monkeywrenching is a how-to for environmental saboteurs. It includes nine chapters of instructions on subjects ranging from tree spiking to destroying roads, from disabling equipment to making smoke bombs.”
Speaking of which, have you read the environmentalist bible The Monkeywrench Gang, by environmental high priest Ed Abbey? Do you, for goodness sake, call that book pro-technology and pro-progress? If you haven’t read it, as environmentalist you must. But I assure you, it’s about as far from pro-technology as it’s humanly possible to get.
How about this:
“Defectors from the environmental movement have told us that Earth First! founder Dave Foreman was approached by the Sierra Club and his employer, the Wilderness Society, in 1979 with an offer to fund a new extremist point group for the movement. It would serve the function of making their own demands look more reasonable … Defectors say that Foreman made the deal by himself in a comfortable Wilderness Society office, and accepted the offer on the condition that funding would be steady and adequate … ‘We thought it would have been useful to have a group to take a tougher position than the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society,’ Foreman remembers. ‘It could be sort of secretly controlled by the mainstream and trotted out at hearings to make the Sierra Club or Wilderness Society look moderate.’
“In his own book, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior, Foreman brags: ‘A major accomplishment of Earth First! … has been to expand the environmental spectrum to where the Sierra Club and other groups are perceived as moderates….’” (Activist Cash, Earth First! Foundation).
An issue of the Earth First! journal has an article that reads:
“By every means necessary we will bring this and every other empire down!”
“Mutiny and sabotage in defense of Mother Earth!” screamed another recent article. Elsewhere in that same issue: “A snitch is no longer entitled to basic expectations of safety. As such, it is righteous to hurt them, burn down their house or do similarly naughty things to them.”
In 2000, the 20th Anniversary issue of the Earth First! Journal bragged: “The simple idea of putting the earth first had drawn expanding crowds of hippies, anarchists, animal rights activists and all sorts of riffraff.” The kind of people who “riff” alphabet songs like this one:
I is incendiary, like burning ‘dozers
J is for jail time, and other enclosures
K is for kill, what they’ll do if they catch you.”
You call that pro-progress?
How about this then:
In 2002, the Earth First! Journal published a two-page spread called “Most-Wanted Eco-terrorists: the Biotechnology Industry.” Claiming that “everyone at Monsanto is an eco-terrorist,” it opened with a line that has become emblematic of green radicals everywhere: “The Earth is not dying, it is being killed by corporations such as the biotechnology industries, and the people who are killing it have names and addresses.” The article then went on to list names and addresses.
But this is all academic. I could go on with these for days — I haven’t even flipped to page 3, honestly — but what, finally, is the point here? Do you really not know that environmentalism is antagonistic to human progress? But there is no real dispute that environmentalism is anti-growth and anti-technology, even, and especially, among the environmentalists themselves. Candidly, I’m astonished that you aren’t aware of this. The main thing is — and this is also in answer to your closing query to Eric — freedom versus coercion.
“The legitimate functions of our government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others,” said Thomas Jefferson.
That is government’s only function.
The function of government is not paternal, and it is not coercive. It does not expropriate property, or support environtmental land grabs. The United States Constitution makes the right to life, liberty, and property inalienable and absolute. Instead of telling me “You’re wrong on this, antisocialist, and you’re clearly wrong on that, antisocialist” why don’t you go back to the fundamentals: what are the proper functions of government and why? What does the inalienable right to life and property mean? What is property? What is a right?
As hard a time as you will have taking that seriously, I’m afraid it’s all Constitutional. Rather than trying to legislate away the Constitution with ersatz environmental laws and regulations, why don’t you people just move to a country whose constitution does not guarantee us the absolute right to our own lives, as we want to live them and not as the environmentalists want us to live them, and our own private property as well? Why?
In the words of Karl Marx, “Control the property, control the person.”
In the words of Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore: “Environmentalism is repackaged Marxism.”
Jersey McJones said,
November 6, 2007 at 5:10 am
Okay Micky, I am now going to attempt to debate all your good points while maintaining the Tygrrrr’s noted decorum. Let’s do it.
I said;
“But intertia is a fact of the universe so unless change is forced, intertia will prevent change”
You said:
“FORCED ?
Inertia promotes its own change, its called the movement of man as a society to go on to invent need by reason of demand. We have always come up with alternatives via the free market as opposed to “FORCE” which is the exact opposite of freedom.”
Please allow me to say that I thought it was clear that I was talking about a “fact of the universe” – a physical law – inertia opposes force. It seems clear to me that what you are saying involves inertia causing a force. Okay. In political debate, that’s fair. But also would it not be fair to say that there are political forces driving that political inertia? Certainly you can see that there are large vested polluting interests who are forcing back in the opposite direction.
I cited:
Global climate change, if left unaddressed, is likely to pose “as a great or a greater foreign policy and national security challenge than any problem” the United States currently faces, according to a major new report released here Monday by two influential Washington think tanks.
To whihc you said,
“Once again this is where debate is useless unless the word “LIKELY is taken out.
It is “LIKELY” that terrorist will blow us all up, but not probable.”
Micky, likely and probable are the same. It is not likely that terrorists will blow us all up. It is likely, according to thousands of scientists, that we are effecting a change in world climate. As we have EVOLVED to adapt to particular climatic dynamics, a new set of dynmaics may well be very problematic to our survival.
You cited from my link,
“The only comparable experience for many in the group was considering what the aftermath of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear exchange might have entailed during the height of the Cold War,” according to the 119-page study, “The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change.”
And then,
“Climate change could have global security implications on a par with nuclear war unless urgent action is taken, a report said on Wednesday,” Jeremy Lovell of Reuters wrote on September 12. Lovell didn’t include any expert skeptical about climate change or its near-nuclear impact on the globe.”
To which you said,
“If you read anything on the link its full of words like “MIGHT”
“MAYBE”
“PROBABLY”
“SUGGEST”
“PLAUSIBLE”
“Under a worst-case scenario, that nonetheless remains “plausible” ””
That’s science, Micky. Unlike dogmatic religion or ideology, science does not always provide perfect surity of belief.
Then you do a 180 and say this,
“We have an old Clinton devotee in the works, so now we immediatly have politics in the mix which makes the whole arguement null and void. And absolutley biased.”
Which is it? Are we exploring probailities or laying out presumed surities? You can’t have it both ways. We are not the ones being dogmatic here, it seems.
I said,
“Capitalists should be grabbing this baby by the horns and figuring out ways to make some money making the Earth a clearer and safer place to live.”
To which you said,
“Unfortunatly none of these who are already capitolizing on the green thing could care less about the enviroment.
Its evident for anyone to see that this capitalistic play on our emotions is already in full play, you cant get away from it, its everywhere, dont even get me started.”
I’m not sure what you’re saying here. You think the outreach to a capitalistic approach to dealing with the problem as playing on your heartstrings? I don’t know about that. All I was saying was that with the right incentives (that forcing metaphor I was using) and a little look to the future (science) we could see whole new industries and professions born of a serious take on this issue.
You said,
“As far as the Amazon deforestation goes, I see you failed to read the Antisocialists facts on the issue. He list 7 resources that totally displace any credibility your link offers.
They are blaming the US for what “MIGHT” happen on projected scales”
No. My link did not “blame the US” for anything. It was simply pointing out that ethanol subsidies to Brazil are lending to the deforestation of the rainforest. It’s a three-way street at least. You have the ethanol crowd (not liberal lefties), the Free Traders, the US gov’t in their pockets, and a Brazil that’s weak on protecting the Amazon. That’s all. I can’t imagine arguing any of that. They are facts.
As for the political bent of the aforementioned study, these bodies are run and operated by professionals – career people – not democratic pols.
JMJ
David M said,
November 6, 2007 at 9:19 am
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 11/06/2007 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
micky2 said,
November 6, 2007 at 9:32 am
Greg said;
“But so what? Can’t we plan for both? Why do we have to raise the global warming threat to apocalyptic catastrophic levels before we take it seriously?”
The problem is that there are people who are not looking at the other science, only the science that predeicts the catastrophic scenario.
The catstrophic scenario is a trojan hourse.
Terrorism is here.
The issue is this, which you continuosly have claimed. And that is that gerbil warming is a greater threat than terrorism, I think we closed that case with reality.
You believe in the catastrophie, then you be my guest and wrap yourself in green.
But do not impose your beliefs on me by means of marketing and mandated lifestyles.
Greg said;
““People are saying they want to be perfectly convinced about climate science projections. But speaking as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.”
We have 100% certainty already Greg, my friends wife died on 911, along with 3000 others.
And dont even get me started on preventative measures concerning terrorism.
Jersetysaid;
” But also would it not be fair to say that there are political forces driving that political inertia?
We are talking about the forces that pollute. That would be you and I and the rest.
We are that force that pollutes out of free will.
The only force that should come to clean it up should be voluntary. I said that inertia promotes its own change, that would be the free market. A force driven by incentive and not commands. Capitalism (the free market) should be the only force allowed to propel the greenies agenda.
You have to be really carefull when you use the word force.
My friend describes force as a fist up your arse.
I will quote Antisocialists address to you on this subject;
Moving on to your wild assertion that there are different “styles” or “varieties” of capitalism, be it lunatic-fringe style, or moderate style: this is an absurd and demonstrably false notion. Capitalism, by its very definition, means free trade. That is all. That’s what capitalism is. It means that government stays out of commerce and industry, just as government stays out of religion, and for the exact same reasons. There is no middle ground to that: it’s either capitalistic, or its opposite: interventionist.
Which means mercantilist.
Which means protectionist.
“Capitalism is the economic manifestation of freedom” (Fredrick Bastiat).
“Capitalism is individual rights applied to the science of production and exchange” (George Reisman).
Capitalism, by definition, is “a network of free voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at” (Capitalism Versus Statism, Murray N. Rothbard).
The crux of capitalism, and thus freedom, is private property.
The only alternative to private property is communal ownership or governmental ownership, which is precisely what environmentalism advocates.
Communal ownership and government ownership are also called socialism. That, by definition, is what socialism is.
As a political philosophy, environmentalism is in every significant way indistinguishable from socialism. Indeed, as many commentators have noted, such as Patrick Moore, one of the cofounders of Green Peace, “environmentalism is repackaged Marxism.”
Socialism, as you presumably know, at least implicitly, is the opposite of capitalism.
Thus, if there is government intervention, it is, to that extent, not capitalism.
Regarding your own espousal of the precautionary principle, it’s not only anti-freedom
Inertia is the only force necessary jersey, its actually called progress in simpler terms.
Voluntary progress cretaed by supply and demand of the people.
Jersey said;
“Micky, likely and probable are the same. It is not likely that terrorists will blow us all up. It is likely, according to thousands of scientists, that we are effecting a change in world climate. As we have EVOLVED to adapt to particular climatic dynamics, a new set of dynmaics may well be very problematic to our survival. ”
Likely and probably are not the same, besides that , lets not play semantics, you know what I meant(hopefully)
Once again, Antisocialist who is the most immpressive source on the subject I have ever heard has addressed you on this, but you choose to argue it with me.
Anti said;
Did you know that two out of three scientists recently poled in each state of this country don’t believe that global warming is anything close to catastrophic? Did you know that over 17,000 scientists, ranging from climatologists to oceanographers to geophysicists, have signed the Oregon Petition, which declares that “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of . . . greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate”?
Did you know that worldwide, that figure of scientists more than doubles?
So jersey if you want to argue likleyhoods or probabilities , there are plenty of them.
The likelyhood that terrorists will blow us up is there only stemming from the logical deduction that it has happened hundreds of times.
You do not need science to prove it.
Jersey said;
That’s science, Micky. Unlike dogmatic religion or ideology, science does not always provide perfect surity of belief.
Its theory, Oxygen and hydrogen making water is science.
Once you can explain it or prove it, it is no longer theory.
Jersey said;
Then you do a 180 and say this,
“We have an old Clinton devotee in the works, so now we immediatly have politics in the mix which makes the whole arguement null and void. And absolutley biased.”
That was an arguement aimed at Gregs sources and frankly you have me lost. I dont see where I did a 180.
Dogma has nothing to do woth it only that I believe I should not be hussled by decieving marketing and agendas.
Jersey said;
“I’m not sure what you’re saying here. You think the outreach to a capitalistic approach to dealing with the problem as playing on your heartstrings? I don’t know about that. All I was saying was that with the right incentives (that forcing metaphor I was using) and a little look to the future (science) we could see whole new industries and professions born of a serious take on this issue.
I’m saying the market will take care of itself, it pulls on our heart strings , yes.
But if the market is free it will also suffer thr repercussions of a bogus product such as all the products made from recyclables that cost more than an arm and a leg and never get sold.
Jersey said;
No. My link did not “blame the US” for anything.http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0516-ethanol_amazon.html
“”Ethanol production in the United States may be contributing to deforestation in the Brazilian rainforest said a leading expert on the Amazon.
Dr. Daniel Nepstad of the Woods Hole Research Center said the growing demand for corn ethanol means that more corn and less soy is being planted in the United States. Brazil, the world’s largest producer of soybeans, is more than making up for shortfall, by clearing new land for soy cultivation.”
Sure sounds to me like they are. But then again , the key word is “MAY”
I “can” have it both ways Jersey, especially when disclaiming words are used, I am allowed to question anything.
Liberal lefties are part of the crowd as much as anyone.
Jersey said;
As for the political bent of the aforementioned study, these bodies are run and operated by professionals – career people – not democratic pols.
Who cares ? Its a tree hugger web site.
Evrviglnt said,
November 6, 2007 at 9:47 am
I’m a big believer in America’s entrepreneurship solving the environmental problems of the world – but there are a lot of things wrong with the global warming movement today. First off, it doesn’t look to engage the free market in addressing these problems because ultimately it is hostile to the economic system. It looks to empower an international body to govern energy use, which is impractical and typical of the left – who wants to centralize control of things under the wisest among us.
The environmental left today prostitutes what is a natural cycle for political power – this is why you hear them constantly announcing that the debate is over and that anyone who defies them are stooges of the energy industry. They insist that we must give them power over our livelihoods in the paramount interest of trying to save the planet (without saying that they see humanity as the virus that spoils such a pristine environment). So can we dismiss the ulterior motives of the left because ultimately what they want to do is good for the environment? I think that’s the question we need to ask ourselves.
Environmentalists lie to us because they disrespect us, but that doesn’t take away from the real need for energy independence and responsibility. It’s just a shame that the message comes from such an ugly source, and that such a taint has now undermined our trust in scientists as well is a consequence of the fanaticism we see in the form of Al Gore.
micky2 said,
November 6, 2007 at 9:55 am
And by the way gentlemen.
Please lets not argue the same issues over and over again when they already have been concluded.
Read the posts completely and the links whithin. Alot of arguements are being raised that have already been addressed
I think the main issue here is how enviromentalism is being forced upon us.
The science, politics and market applications are all guilty of this. Regardless of which side you are on.
The problem that is hard to ignore is that the left by a majority adheres to the doomsday scenarios. I doubt anyone can argue this.
Please , please put the terror thing away. It is a clear and present danger.
It is in your face and as bad as it has ever gotten.
micky2 said,
November 6, 2007 at 10:13 am
Whats evident is that there is a marketing scam going on of astronmical proportions that is using politics to push itself. The politics if allowed will impose mandated behavior and we loose our freedoms. The market will hash it out via the will of the people. But the mandates will remain, thus FORCING the corporate world to engage in losing endeavors. National financial ruin will ensue.
What is not evident is what has not been proven yet.
micky2 said,
November 6, 2007 at 10:20 am
It goes far far deeper than the environment.
Take a glimpse of the other side of green at Archlights blog written yesterday.http://arclightzero.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/the-scary-side-of-green/#comments
“”Movement” of “VHEMT” (their tag line? “Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth’s biosphere to return to good health“). I’m not going to tread on Phesity’s toes here, as she did a great job of covering this particular looney band of radicals, but it got me thinking… How many of these people are out there? How many groups are out there advocating for the extinction (or at least reduction) of man and civilization in the name of environmentalism?””
We are not talking only about trees and rivers and oceans.
Jersey McJones said,
November 6, 2007 at 12:08 pm
“The only force that should come to clean it up should be voluntary.”
Yeah, that’s workin’ out real well.
The environement is our’s – not corporations. If WE want to force it, there is nothing wrong, unethical, immoral, or unconstitutional with that.
JMJ
micky2 said,
November 6, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Forcing yourself is O.K.
Force is the opposite of freedom jersey.
It is unethical to force anything upon anyone.
It is immoral to force anything upon anyone.
It is unconstitutional to force anything upon anyone.
micky2 said,
November 6, 2007 at 12:20 pm
“Jersey said”
” Yeah, that’s workin’ out real well.”
This is the arguement, wheres the disaster ?
What is not working out ?
Jersey McJones said,
November 6, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Micky, the environment belongs to ALL of us, not just you. If you dump toxic chemicals on your lawn and my well water is contaminated, then you have commited a crime. So why is it that when corportaions dump toxic chemicals into the water and air that we drink and breathe that is okay with you?
Your argument is wrong and completely off base.
JMJ
antisocialist said,
November 6, 2007 at 1:24 pm
There is, Mr. McJones, no such thing as a collective “we,” nor a collective “our,” nor a “community” as such. There are only individuals.
As has been pointed out many times before, there is no such thing as “a collective” at all: there are only the individuals who make up that collective.
The individual is the one indivisible unit, and therefore the individual is the only proper standard of law, including, obviously, property law. To subordinate the individual to this nebulous “collective” — to subordinate the individual to the “we,” which is all of socialism in a nutshell — is to subordinate the individual to the masses. Which is precisely what the Untited States Constitution sought to avoid. That is why we do not live in a democracy but rather a Constitutional republic wherein the absolute right to life, liberty, and property are Constitutionally guaranteed — not, as is the case of democracies, subject to vote or subject to the whims of the majority, but absolute.
In fact, the Constitutional framers and the enlightenment thinkers who most influenced these men were statedly opposed to democracy precisely because “democracy subordinates the individual to the majority.”
(Democracy has one place in our government: what some have called the “selection of personnel,” which refers to electing officials whose job it is to implement the Constitutional principles; but those principles, the principle of rights, are already in place and not subject to vote; nor was the selection of personnel ever meant to be a primary issue. The fact that it has become so—when, for example, it is decided by vote whether you may open your liquor store on Sunday, or when it is decided by vote if you can allow people to smoke in your place of business, or throw away your newspapers—tells you how little our politicians and legal “philosophers” understand the nature of rights, and how far away we’ve come from the original concept.)
That is why the absolute crux of this issue is private property, whether that property is owned by a corporation, or whether it is owned by you and you alone.
No person may lawfully violate another’s property.
That is how you protect against pollution and littering and all these other things you’re purportedly so concerned about. It’s called tort law, and it’s perfectly compatible — indeed, indispensible — to a Constitutional Republic wherein the rights of each, including, crucially, the right to private property, are guaranteed and inalienable. Your espousal of so-called “public ownership” and “government ownership” is what convolutes this very basic and important principle; furthermore, it’s what’s paved the way for all these gross breaches of private property and all these inane environmental laws that have become so very commonplace.
Thus, if you really want justic and a cleaner environment, absolute private property rights is what you should be pushing for — and pushing for with all your might. Certainly not its opposite.
If you’re ever confused on the issue of rights, there is a completely foolproof method for determining what a right is: your rights, my rights, everybody’s rights stop where another’s begin.
If you follow that principle, you’ll never confuse the issue again.
Rights are inalienable in this sense:
“Persons unaccustomed to attach exact meanings to words will say that the fact that a man may be unjustly executed or imprisoned negates this proposition [of inalienable rights]. It does not. The right is with the victim nonetheless; and very literally it cannot be alienated, for alienated means passing into the possession of another. One man cannot enjoy either the life or liberty of another. If he kills ten men he will not thereby live ten lives or ten times as long; nor is he more free if he puts another man in prison. Rights are by definition inalienable; only privileges can be transferred. Even the right to own property cannot be alienated or transferred, though a given item of property can be. If one man’s rights are infringed, no other man obtains them; on the contrary, all men are thereby threatened with a similar injury.” (Isabel Paterson, the government, can compel you to sell your property to the government. There are limitations on that right – it must be for a public purpose and just compensation must be paid – but it is a right provided for in the Constitution a group has that the individual members of that group do not have.
Rights are not “provided.” They are either recognized or they are not. If they are not recognized they are still unalienable. Fundamentally, there is only one right: the right to your own life, and by extension you own property. Property, as noted numerous times now, is an extension of person. Property is the right of use and disposal.
greg wrote: > Similarly, as an individual I do not have the right to search or seize your property, but the group or government does have the right to do so.
The government does not act by right! This is a very grave and dangerous error on your part. Government acts by permission (no doubt you’re familiar with the “consent of the governed.” 😉 It’s crucial that you come to understand the distinction between acting by right and acting by permission. Please, if you grasp nothing else, grasp this: rights, by virtue of what they are, can only apply to the individual — each and every individual. I would like for you to define the word “right,” not to me or anyone else, but in your own mind, and without using the word “right” to define it. It is also very interesting to note in your above-quoted passage how you smuggle in the word “group,” which is certainly not the words of the Constitution that you purport to be such a stickler over, and in fact goes some way, I believe, in revealing your collectivist agenda.
(continued)
antisocialist said,
November 7, 2007 at 6:29 pm
(continued)
During the War Between the States, Abraham Lincoln suppressed and closed down over a hundred Union newspapers, implemented conscription, deported political enemies, and suspended habeas corpus, jailing thousands of dissenters without trial. The Supreme Court objected, but Lincoln simply ignored them.
During World War I, Woodrow Wilson drafted 2.8 million Americans, the German language was barred from public schools, and Congress passed a number of nasty laws including the Sedition Act, which made simple criticism of the U.S. government, its flag, its military uniforms, or its allies a highly punishable offense.
(continued)
antisocialist said,
November 7, 2007 at 6:30 pm
(continued)
The law was brutally enforced: socialist activist Eugene V. Debs went to prison for ten years for an antiwar speech he made, and movie producer Robert Goldstein was sentenced to ten years in prison for his patriotic movie, Spirit of ’76, about the American Revolution, in which he characterized Britain — U.S. ally in World War I, American enemy in the Revolution — in a bad light. The Supreme Court upheld these absurd violations of free speech, explaining that war made such extreme measures necessary.
During World War II, the draft returned to take hold of ten million young men. This time, the Supreme Court not only upheld the draft but argued that pretty much anything else the government wanted to do must also be constitutional — because such exercises of power were clearly more benign than the authority to force Americans into combat. American civil liberties hit an absolute low point in World War II when Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which forced 110,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps — an order the court also went along with.
The Constitution — and especially the Bill of Rights — was established for the precise purpose of restricting the government from interfering with absolute rights, especially in the most precarious of times for liberty, such as wartime
(continued)
antisocialist said,
November 7, 2007 at 6:31 pm
(continued)
You see, greg, even though these infringments can indeed happen, the right remains unalienable — i.e. it is with the victim nonetheless, i.e. politcally absolute. That is what very word “absolute” means in the context of rights.
greg wrote: > antisocialist [has] ignored or misconstrued things
My goodness, greg. Not intentionally, I assure you. In fact, just the opposite: I’ve tried to be very thorough here. If, however, I have ignored you and misconstrued you, please know that it’s only my old nemesis — Ignorance — that’s to blame. I must say, though, in all fairness, that your saying that strikes me very much like the raven chiding its own blackness. Why betray so much, greg? And why, for the record, do you object so stridently to my advocacy of the inalienable right to life, liberty and property? Because you believe others should have the right to my life?
greg wrote: > And he is dead wrong on the point as I pretty clearly spelled out.
You may be flattering yourself, particularly anent your own powers of articulation, friend. In fact, your grammar in that very sentence is atrocious.
(continued)
antisocialist said,
November 7, 2007 at 6:32 pm
(continued)
greg wrote: > I noticed that you haven’t challenged my argument on absolute rights in the Constitution either
How can you say that!? Did you not read my post above? I’m almost certain now that what you’re really objecting to my use of the word “absolute.” Fine. I’ll shelve it. But I want you to know that in using it as a synonym for “unalienable” and “inalienable” (which it is), I had absolutely no idea that I was going to send you through the roof. Nor was that my intention at all. In fact, if I had known that it was going to send you through the roof, I would have just gone with “unalienable” so as we could have stuck to the more on-topic environmental propaganda we were, I thought, supposed to be discussing.
greg wrote: > where in the US Constitution does it guarantee “the absolute right to life, liberty, and property”?
“… all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
greg wrote: > It wasn’t the notion of property rights I was challenging,
Oh?
greg wrote: > but they [life, liberty, and property] are not absolute and were never intended to be.
Anyway I thought you believed in the environmental premise of communal and governmental ownership. Let us see….
greg wrote: > Are there specific limitations on the authority of government that serve to protect life, liberty and property? Of course there are, but they are not absolute and were never intended to be.
Yes indeed. Well, if you can hold those contradictions in your own mind, that’s your business. Here, again, from the Encyclopedia: “… all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Note: the original hand-written text ended on the phrase “the pursuit of property” rather than “the pursuit of Happiness” but the phrase was changed in subsequent copies in part because it was broader and less like the Second Treatise.)
(continued)
antisocialist said,
November 7, 2007 at 6:37 pm
(continued)
Now I’m asking serioulsy: forget that you just said you weren’t questioning property rights qua property rights (even though you then immediatly said that you don’t believe that the right to life, liberty, and property are not unalieble) — forget all that, and tell us: do you really believe that this quoted passage from the Declaration — I know it’s not your Preamble — is not saying that our right to life is unalieable?
antisocialist said,
November 7, 2007 at 7:03 pm
At this point, I can’t get the rest to post. But it’s written, and there’s much more to come. Hopefully, Eric will be able to help me get it published, which, when you do, Eric, delete this comment.
greg said,
November 7, 2007 at 7:16 pm
There’s “much more” to come? While we’re waiting, I’ll try to get down from going through the roof, stop being hysterical, and brush up on my grammar.
Jersey McJones said,
November 7, 2007 at 8:16 pm
I can’t believe the hurdles and hoops people will jump to rationalize their suppositions. What will you guys tell your grandchildren one day if you’re really, really wrong?
JMJ
antisocialist said,
November 7, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Here, if you’re interested — and I have a feeling you’re not — is what Oxford says the word “unalienable” means:
Unalienable: 1) inalienable; that which cannot be alienated or transferred from the present relation or owner.
And here’s what Webster says: Unalienable: 1) not alienable. That which may not be transferred, removed, taken away, or destroyed.
Alienable: 1) able to be alienated; to transfer or remove, as in the ownership of a person or thing.
And that does not mean absolute?
absolute: law 1) that cannot be encumbered; inalienable.
And so you would tell us all (again) that rights “are not absolute and were never intended to be,” to use your unbelievable words, but that, at the same time, they are unalienable, as the Declaration states?
Or what?
Or perhaps I’m being presumptuous? Do you also dispute what the Constitution says when it says that our rights are in fact “unalienable”? How far does your pilpulism go here?
Incidentally, this will come as a shock to you, but we don’t need the Constitution to tell us that our rights are unalienable: our rights are unalienable regardless; it’s just a question of if those unalieanble rights are recognized.
This whole discussion, really, hinges upon what you conceive rights to be, which you haven’t bothered to define. And the fact that you believe that government does possesses rights, as opposed to permissions, tells us everything we need to know.
“Rights,” to avoid your next non-sequitur, are not defined in the Constitution, but they are defined by some of the framers, and most especially by John Locke; by their very definition, rights can only apply to the individual. And that is precisely why they are compossible. That is why they are absolute — or, if you prefer it (and we all know you do), inalienable.
“Rights are moral-political precepts which define and sanction the individuals freedom of action in a political context. All rights rest upon the fact that man survives by means of reason. Rights are rights to the actions necessary for the preservation of a rational being. Only an entity with a conceptual faculty has judgment on which to act, volition with which to select goals, and intelligence …”
If humans, like animals, did not possess the faculty of choice, greg, then, just as you wish, there could be no question of unalienable rights: for any action we undertook would be unchosen and automatic. But we do not live as animals; we think and reason. This is what gives rise to the necessity and, yes, absolutism of rights.
greg wrote: > I could go on with the other examples you mention but I think I’ve made my point.
Hardly. Unless your point is that you don’t like the word “absolute” to describe rights; unless your point is that you can jump from one topic to the next with great facility. And so that you know: just because the supreme court rules in favor or against something does not mean that it is thereby a truth. The courts are very capable of error and misinterpretation and misimplementation. Unalienable rights have routinely been violated by the courts, all throughout history, in fact, perhaps most famously in the countless cases upholding slavery, which is obviously an utter breach of rights, and, just incidentally, since you yourself do not believe that rights are unalienable, you necessarily believe that some men to have the “right” to enslave others. That’s part of the package of rejecting the absolutism of the right to life, liberty and property.
It is only the principle of unalienable natural rights that protects against such gross injustices as slavery.
greg wrote: > And, of course, you did not even address the Preamble, which also makes it pretty clear that there is more to the Constitution than just the protection of individual rights.
Of course. So what do you want me to do, greg? Go through the entire Constitution with you in this comment box? I’ll tell you very candidly, you’ve got a hell of a nerve criticizing what I have and have not addressed, since in good faith I’ve made every effort to answer your nonsensical non-sequiturs, which you evidently think are so powerful, and I’ve endeavored earnestly to answer each of your points, however fatuous those points are. And now you feel that all the time I’ve spent in saying all that I’ve said is not enough. What I’ve said is lacking, and you have difficulty “taking me seriously.” Fine (although I can’t help noticing that you’ve spent considerable time on someone you have difficulty taking seriously, and so what does that tell us? Only what we knew from the very beginning: that you’re full of baloney).
But in fairness, let us level this same criticism at you, greg, since I’ve lost count of how many specific issues I’ve brought up that you’ve not only not, as you say, “addressed” but haven’t even made an effort to. I’ve made a sincere effort. You move on to the next thing and the next and the next, whether it’s the Amazonian rainforest depleted due to “mining and agriculture,” or whether it’s Kyoto, or whether its terrorism, or whether it’s the whole absolutism of private property jag you brought up, arbitrary, I might add, a complete non-sequitur to the environmental issues I’d thought we were discussing. And after I spend all this time writing you good faith responses, and seriously endeavor to, as you say, “address” you, the only thing that comes out of your mouth is bile. Did they teach you that in your Christian school?
Or is that just more of your own sloppy polemics?
Back to the drawing board, friend. My life is absolutely my own. That doesn’t just go away because you wish it.
micky2 said,
November 7, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Jersey said;
“I can’t believe the hurdles and hoops people will jump to rationalize their suppositions. What will you guys tell your grandchildren one day if you’re really, really wrong?
Its safe to say this comment would apply across the board.
You’ve been on this thread just as long as anyone else doing the same thing you say we are doing.
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
greg said,
November 7, 2007 at 9:38 pm
I’ve got to admit it’s been awhile since I’ve been accused of pilpulism.
You know, all I did was ask, in response to one of your statements, where in the Constitution it guaranteed the absolute right to life, liberty and property. It was really a very simple question but you have gone to exasporating and extraordinary lengths to argue this whole property argument and to parse the terms absolute, inalienable and unalienable, and whatever other terms you’ve come up with. You’ve inundated us with Locke and Jefferson and a whole lot of other sources, but that was never the issue!
And underneath all of this, you actually agree with me! According to you, the Constitution “is an imperfect document; it does indeed contain contradictions. … The eminent domain passage you talk about, and the so-called commerce clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) were both hotly debated, and as they stand, they’re both very serious flaws in the Constitution because they are a breach of rights. … Eminent domain is a complete and gross infringement of rights, property and otherwise.”
My point exactly. They do NOT guarantee the absolute right to life, liberty and property and you have failed to show anywhere else in the Constitution where an absolute right to life, liberty and property is guaranteed.
You admit that the Constitution is based not only on Lockean liberalism but that early American history is rooted in Greco-Roman traditions, in Christianity, and in English Common law, roots that have never been reconcilable.
Again, exactly the point I was trying to make, and the Constitution reflects these mixtures of tradition and thought (as well as others).
That’s all I was trying to say, nothing more and nothing less. What’s important here is that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. You can use whatever secondary sources you like to bolster your interpretation of it — that’s fine — but the Constitution remains the supreme law of the land.
In the end, I guess it comes down to this — you contend your life is absolutely your own, and that’s fine by me, but I don’t. For me, my life belongs to God and it comes with gifts and responsibilities. I live in a nation of people and that, too, comes with gifts and responsibilities.
greg said,
November 7, 2007 at 9:47 pm
My last paragraph didn’t make it either. Sorry
I was going to say, antisocialist, if you don’t like the society that has been created under the imperfect Constitution that completely and grossly infringes upon your rights, you’re free to find some other place to live, work and enjoy your absolute, inalienable, unalienable or whatever rights to life, liberty and property. I wish you well and let us know when you find it.
micky2 said,
November 7, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Greg said;
my life belongs to God and it comes with gifts and responsibilities.
Would that responsability be to live and let live Greg ?
And not impose a vision and circumstance upon others that is not complete ?
Such as the hoops the environmentalists want and are trying to make us jump through ?
antisocialist said,
November 7, 2007 at 10:48 pm
greg wrote: > it’s been awhile [sic] since I’ve been accused of pilpulism.
But you have been accused of it before? Well, surely that tells us something.
greg wrote: > You know, all I did was ask, in response to one of your statements, where in the Constitution it guaranteed the absolute right to life, liberty and property.
Well, to be fair, that’s not all you did. Actually, it was one of many subjects you skipped onto.
greg wrote: > It was really a very simple question
Questions concerning the nature of rights are never simple. That’s why rights are so poorly understood today. On the contrary, in fact, rights are enormously complex, which only a small handful of people understand.
greg wrote: > [you] argue this whole property argument and to parse the terms absolute, inalienable and unalienable, and whatever other terms you’ve come up with.
Those are not my terms, greg, and you know it. They’re directly quoted from the men who framed the Constitution, and for you to pretend otherwise is dishonest. I was quoting their words, not fabricating these words out of nothing. And, lest you forget, you brought the subject up after I used the term “absolute,” rather offhandedly, instead its (interchangable) term “unalienable.” So let us be exact. And fair. Let us not pretend that this is something I wittingly instigated.
greg wrote: > And underneath all of this, you actually agree with me!
I do? Is that with or without the exclamation point?
greg wrote: > According to you, the Constitution “is an imperfect document; it does indeed contain contradictions. … The eminent domain passage you talk about, and the so-called commerce clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) were both hotly debated, and as they stand, they’re both very serious flaws in the Constitution because they are a breach of rights. … Eminent domain is a complete and gross infringement of rights, property and otherwise.”
Yes …
greg wrote: > My point exactly.
I thought your point was that the right to life, liberty, and property is not unalienable? Now there I have misread you.
greg wrote: > They do NOT guarantee the absolute right to life, liberty and property
“They” meaning the eminent domain passage, and the so-called commerce clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3), you mean? But what about what I’ve already quoted to you a number of times now: all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
(Note: the original hand-written text ended on the phrase “the pursuit of property” rather than “the pursuit of Happiness” but the phrase was changed in subsequent copies in part because it was broader and less like the Second Treatise.)
greg wrote: > You admit that the Constitution is based not only on Lockean liberalism but that early American history is rooted in Greco-Roman traditions, in Christianity, and in English Common law, roots that have never been reconcilable.
It wasn’t an “admission,” greg; for that implies that you’d already said those words, which you hadn’t. It also implies that I had disagreed, which I didn’t, not least because you never said it. Also, you cite my words there, but you conveniently leave out what I also said; namely, the stated quiditty of the Constitution. Here again: “if we distill the Constitution down to its essence, we find ourself left with one overwhelming principle: that each man by virtue of being human possesses the absolute right to life.”
greg wrote: > Again, exactly the point I was trying to make, and the Constitution reflects these mixtures of tradition and thought
That was your point? I thought your point was that the Kyoto treaty did not go far enough. And that the Amazonian rainforest is being depleted because of mining and agriculture. And that the Constitution does not guarantee us the unalienable right to property.
greg wrote: > That’s all I was trying to say, nothing more and nothing less.
No?
greg wrote: > What’s important here is that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
Does the Declaration that says all men have the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
greg wrote: > You can use whatever secondary sources you like to bolster your interpretation of it — that’s fine —
Thank you, greg. Your sanction makes it that much easier.
greg wrote: > you contend your life is absolutely your own
I don’t really “contend” it, no.
greg wrote: > and that’s fine by me, but I don’t.
Thank you again. For your permission, I mean.
greg wrote: > For me, my life belongs to God and it comes with gifts and responsibilities.
Voluntary responsibilities or government-coerced?
greg wrote: > I live in a nation of people and that, too, comes with gifts and responsibilities.
Would those also be voluntary, or government-coerced responsibilities?
greg wrote: > antisocialist, if you don’t like the society that has been created under the imperfect Constitution that completely and grossly infringes upon your rights
The Constitution doesn’t do that, greg. The government and other people do.
greg wrote: > you’re free to find some other place to live, work and enjoy your absolute, inalienable, unalienable or whatever rights to life, liberty and property.
I thought you didn’t believe I possessed that right? Anyway, thank you again for your permission. It occurs to me that I said pretty much these exact same words to you in a previous post, when we were still talking about your espousal of environmental restrictions and regulations.
greg wrote: > I wish you well and let us know when you find it.
Well, that was anticlimactic.
Thank you so much, greg.
antisocialist said,
November 7, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Mr. McJones,
I don’t know that I’m all that interested in what (as you say) you “can and can’t imagine being,” but I would like to know what you find so objectionable about my advocacy of self-ownership and the unalienable right to life, liberty and property. What do you find so controversial about my rejection of authoritarianism?
You should never forget that without the guarantee of these rights, men are thereby subject to the arbitrary decrees and whims of government, as well as of other men.
“It is these rights, and only these rights, which protect us from the violation of government and others” (James Madison).
You are correct, however, in saying that the right to life, liberty and property are incompatible with environmentalism. They are indeed.
Also, not reading what I’ve written puts us in the embarrassing postion of again having to point out to you that I’ve already said what you think I did not. To wit: it is obviously not legal or lawful to poison others, via pollution or anything else, and it is precisely tort law that protects against that, as I said. Furthermore, it is not legal to poison because poisoning is an infringment upon the unalienable right to life.
Your rights, my rights, everyone’s rights stop where another’s begin.
When you reject that, you perforce reject all standards of personal sovereignty and self-ownership. You can be sure at that point that slavery, in one form or another, is not far behind.
Remember: the opposite of existing by right is existing by permission.
Since you regard the reportage of history as a, in your words, “rationalization,” you probably won’t be interested to know the actual history of the Mayflower and Jamestown, both of which began as collectivist to the core, but ended in capitalistic, out of necessity, for that is the only thing that saved them. Allow me fill you in on the real story — or, to be fair to you, the real rationalization:
In May of 1606, the first American settlers arrived in Jamestown.
The Virginia Tidewater Region, where these 104 people set up their colony, was surpassingly fertile, and the settlers found all the resources they could want: oceans teeming with seafood; woodlands alive with turkey and other game birds; more wild game than they could possibly imagine; nuts and fruit of almost every kind.
The black soil grew everything.
And yet within half a year only 38 of the original 104 settlers were still alive, the rest having succumbed to famine.
Not two years later, 500 more people were sent to “refresh” the devastated settlers.
Within half a year, the majority of these new arrivals—440, to be precise—had died of starvation or disease.
Cannibalism was not uncommon.
The resources were still as rich as ever, hardly tapped, in fact, and so what had happened?
It’s a remarkable period in America’s early history. It’s also extraordinarily edifying to investigate; for as it happens, it provides us with a real-life illustration of socialism and capitalism at work side-by-side.
You can, for the record, read all about it in Tom Bethell’s book: The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages. And also Doctor Thomas Dilorenzo’s excellent book How Capitalism Saved America.
You see, the original American settlers had intentionally and exclusively adopted socialist politics: i.e. communal ownership of property. As a result, most starved to death, or were killed off by disease—the very same problem, it turns out, that has been occurring steadily three centuries later in every communist country that’s collectivized its economy, particularly the agriculture.
As one early Jamestown eyewitness, a man by the name of George Percy, described it in his old English: [The cause of famine was] want of providence, industrie … and not the barennesse and defect of the Countri, as is generally supposed” (Warren M. Billings, “George Percy’s Account of the Voyage to Virginia and the Colony’s First Days’s).
But how could this possibly have been? How could people such as this have “lacked industrie” when these people were specifically chosen for having the exact opposite characteristic?
The answer to this question is not arcane, nor is it even particularly difficulty to fathom. Indeed, it is deceptively simple: the people of Jamestown had no financial stake in their endeavors; they were, indeed, little more than indentured servants. Thus everything they produced went into a public pool. Working harder and longer, therefore, did not benefit any one person any more. So these people responded exactly as humans always will in such a situation: they did not work harder—any of them.
In his book, Mr. Bethel notes what some few insightful economists have been saying for a long time: lack of work and “industrie” goes hand-in-hand with lack of property rights.
Or as historian Philip Bruce said, in an article about these very Jamestown settlers: “[They] did not have even a modified interest in the soil … Everything produced by them went into the [public] store, in which they had no ownership.” Thus, all grew idle—even those who were known to be “exceptionally motivated and strong-willed”—and most, in the end, refused to work at all.
“The absence of property rights—and of the work/reward nexus that such rights create—completely destroyed the work ethic of the settlers” (How Capitalism Saved America, p.55, Thomas Dilornenzo).
Frustrated and puzzled, the British government, who financed this colonization, sent, in 1611, a man named Sir Thomas Dale to serve as “High Marshal of the Virginian Colony.” Listen closely to what Mr. Dale observed, for it is genuinely astounding.
And yet in many ways it is perfectly predictable and indicative:
“Dale noted that although most of the settlers had starved to death, the remaining ones were spending much of their time playing games in the streets, and he immediately identified the problem: the system of communal ownership” (Ibid).
It was then that the High Marshal Sir Thomas Dale gave every man three acres of land for each to own unto himself; simultaneously, he did away with pooling into a communal treasury.
Private property, in other words, was officially enacted, public ownership abolished.
Immediately the colony began to prosper.
The notorious “free-rider problem,” endemic to socialism, vanished as each person became his own master; as each person bore the full brunt of inaction and non-productivity. At the same time, each and every person had incentive to work harder since harder work meant greater prosperity and a direct benefit to each from that labor.
One of the fundamental flaws of socialism is that it assumes people will work as hard or harder for others as they will for themselves. This is untrue, because it is contrary to human nature. It is contrary to human survival, and Jamestown shows us a historical illustration of it writ large.
“As soon as the settlers were thrown upon their own resources,” says historian Mathew Anderson, “and each freeman had acquired the right of owning property, the colonists quickly developed what became the distinguishing characteristic of Americans—and aptitude for all kinds of craftsmanship coupled with an innate genius for experimentation and invention” (Virginia, The Old Dominion, Vol. 1).
Other propitious things began to happen as well.
“The Jamestown colonists had originally implored the Indians to sell them corn, but the Indians looked down on the settlers because [the settlers] were barely capable of growing corn, thanks to their communistic economics. After the introduction of private property and the resulting transformation, however, the Indians began coming to the colonists to acquire corn in return for furs and other items” (Ibid).
A friendly system of free-trade thus began. And that peaceful exchange, the natural outgrowth of private property, is capitalism.
The division of labor—an absolutely indispensable component to private property, which promotes specialization of labor, insofar as each is no longer forced to produce all his own food since he can now trade specialty items for specialty products others produce—was immediately born.
In addition to this explosion of prosperity, there was also greater peace:
It made no sense now for either side—Indians or settlers—to war with another, because free-trade was advantageous to each. But prior to Sir Thomas Dale’s instituting of private property, the settlers used “to steal from the Indians,” and even “beg from them,” a fact that the Indians naturally resented.
In Jamestown, the institution of private property changed all this.
But there’s more.
Not many years later, in November of 1620, there was another group of American settlers, 101 of them to be exact, not financed by the British government, who arrived on the good ship Mayflower, in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. These Pilgrims moved a short distance away to a place called Plymouth. They were not at all unaware of the early Jamestown disaster, the starvation, the disease, the famine; they were, however, unaware of what had caused it.
Accordingly, they proceeded to make the identical mistake that the settlers of Jamestown had made: collective ownership of property.
And the Pilgrims too paid dearly for it.
Within a few short months, half were dead.
Over the course of the next three years, 100 more settlers arrived from England to Plymouth, all of whom were barely able to feed themselves. As Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford wrote in his famous Of Plymouth Plantation: “Many [settlers] sold away their clothes and bed coverings [to the Indians]; others (so base were they) became servants of the Indians … and fetch them water for a capful of corn; others fell to plain stealing, both day and night, from the Indians…. In the end, they came to that misery that some starved to and died with cold and hunger. One in gathering shellfish was so weak as he stuck fast in the mud and was found dead in the place.”
But this same William Bradford would soon solve “the ruin and dissolution of his colony,” and he would do it in the same way Sir Thomas Dale had in Jamestown.
Here’s another famous passage from William Bradford’s book that I’m sure you’ve heard:
“After much debate of things … [it was decided that the Pilgrims] should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves … And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, for present use. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression” (Of Plymouth Plantation William Bradford).
Bradford came to fully grasp how lack of property rights negates and indeed destroys the work incentive: “For [men] and men’s wives” (he said) “to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat,” (so to speak) “washing their clothe, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husband brook it.”
“Common course” was abandoned in favor of setting “every man for his own particular,” meaning private property. Instantaneously, those who had been indolent became “very industrious,” so much so that woman and men who had “previously pleaded frailty worked long and hard—once they saw how they and their families could benefit from such hard work.”
William Bradford went on to correctly identify the source of the “disastrous problem” as “that conceit of Plato’s,” who, in direct contrast to the Stagirite, Aristotle, advocated collectivism and collective ownership of land, which, as history has now repeatedly proved, is death to any society. Bradford even wrote later that those who mistakenly believed that communal property could make people “happy and flourishing” imagined themselves “wiser than God.”
Remember that not once in the history of the world has a communistic system ever flourished. Not once.
Remember that our lives, each and every one of us, are unalienably our own, and that by direct extension, this means that our property, so vital to sustaining life, is unalienably our own. Nobody, not your government, not greg, not you, not Karl Marx, not anybody may rightfully take any of that property without your voluntary agreement — i.e. without your permission — not for any reason, not in any amount, including the service of the so-called “common good.” Remember also that being compelled to serve the collective is poison to each member of that “collective.”
Remember this furthermore:
“The Pilgrims had encountered what is called the free-rider problem, which is impossible to solve without dividing property into individual units. And this is the course of action that William Bradford wisely took” (The Noblest Triumph, Tom Bethell, 1998).
Wisely in part because it set the trend for all that would make America what she would eventually become: a land of independence, industriousness, ingenuity, experimentation, invention, genius, greatness—in a word, a land of freedom.
A land wherein the right of private property reigned supreme for a while, not this nebulous we-all-must-be-coerced-to-live-for-one-another, even if we don’t want to, countertrend, which has been destroying private ownership piecemeal for well over a century now, but which was never, ever the intent.
micky2 said,
November 8, 2007 at 12:17 am
This was explained in my” Loosing your tip” post last month.
I’m a professional in the rest. business for at least 30 years, an assoc. science in management and about 10 culinary certificates and three apprenticeships.
And some” guy” who had worked in only one restaraunt in his whole life told me I just needed to hire better waiters and tip pooling would work out fine for everyone.
You might be wasting your time with this “guy” Anti.
micky2 said,
November 8, 2007 at 1:08 am
Here it is, I found it !
Jersey McJones said,
October 17, 2007 at 9:18 am
Micky, I read your post about tips. look, if the boss only hires good waiters then pooling wouldn’t be an issue. I worked a restaurant whan I was young. The staff were all good, and they pooled tips. The boss made sure of it. Everyone worked hard, but not every customer tipped the same. You don’t understand socialism.
Every waiter was just as good as the other ?
With all my years in the business , that s the dumbest thing I ever heard.
Did all the other waiters have the same timing I did ?
Did all the other waiters happen to also be professional chefs ?
And so were they able to explain in detail as I did how their meal was made ? The history of the culture that the recipe was derived from?
Did anyone in your restaraunt know how to flambe`and prepare any meal not roasted in and oven at the table ?
Were all the waiters as familiar with the town they lived in as I was ?
Hawaii is a tourist destination, I was raised here, I know my way around blind folded, literally in some areas.
I would give tours , directions and advice to my customers.
And I am supposed to share what I earned with all these waiters who are good but by my standards average ?
Where did you work Jersey ?, Dennys ?, IHOP? Pizza hut ? Or one those overdressed fast food joints they call restaraunts ?
I’m sure you’ll try to answer this one with some rationalization explaining how you can work in or operate a restaraunt better than me.
I have seen first hand in many tip pooling restaraunt how the pooling (collectivism)
has ruined a perfectly good establishment.
Jersey McJones said,
November 8, 2007 at 9:53 am
Micky,
I said, “I can’t believe the hurdles and hoops people will jump to rationalize their suppositions. What will you guys tell your grandchildren one day if you’re really, really wrong?
To which you said, “Its safe to say this comment would apply across the board.”
Micky, that’s my whole point. If I’m wrong, then it doesn’t matter. If your wrong, then we are irresponsibly wrecking the environment of our children and their children and on and on. If I’m wrong then I will have to tell my grandkids, “Yeah, silly grandpa thought that too.” If you’re wrong then you will have to tell your grandkids, “Yeah, sorry about that, so when will you kids be up to visit from Antarctica?”
You really still don’t get this?
JMJ
Jersey McJones said,
November 8, 2007 at 9:58 am
Ah, the tip thing again!
I said, “Micky, I read your post about tips. look, if the boss only hires good waiters then pooling wouldn’t be an issue. I worked a restaurant whan I was young. The staff were all good, and they pooled tips. The boss made sure of it. Everyone worked hard, but not every customer tipped the same. You don’t understand socialism.”
To which you said,
“Every waiter was just as good as the other ?”
Yes. My boss and his wife (the head waitress) only hired good waitresses and waiters (though, I guess theyre all called “Sevrers” or something today).
“With all my years in the business , that s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
Perhaps you’re not working for very good hirers.
The fact is that you can control the quality of staff, but you can’t control the cheapness of patrons, Micky. That’s why pooling. Most servers get that.
JMJ
Jersey McJones said,
November 8, 2007 at 10:13 am
Anti,
“…I would like to know what you find so objectionable about my advocacy of self-ownership and the unalienable right to life, liberty and property.”
I’m sorry, I find it simplistic, unrealistic, and constructionist – which I find appallingly small-minded. Nothing personal, but you asked. It sounds like the epitemology of a spoiled, rich, white, libertarian teenager. There are limits on all rights, and those limits are the various borders between individuals. You make no exception for that and therefore undermine your entire argument.
“What do you find so controversial about my rejection of authoritarianism?”
Authoritarianism??? Heck, you reject any kind of civic stewardship.
“You are correct, however, in saying that the right to life, liberty and property are incompatible with environmentalism. They are indeed.”
I never said that! Jesus man, get real. Don’t get sleazy on me! I’ms saying that without the envirment, life, liberty and property are moot!
“Your rights, my rights, everyone’s rights stop where another’s begin.
When you reject that, you perforce reject all standards of personal sovereignty and self-ownership. You can be sure at that point that slavery, in one form or another, is not far behind.”
Oh no, not the rightwing-code “slavery” analogy. Can we get back to reality for one moment here? When you pollute the environment, you pollute it for everyone – you infringe on other peoples’ rights to life, liberty and property. Without spending fifteen paragraphs obfusgating the subject with our Forefathers, can you explain to me what you don’t get about that? And also, since you think all comes down to the individual, what possible intellectual hurdle are you climbing to avert the notion that therefore corporations have no rights? For all your intellectual (psuedo, in my opinion, and I’m an ol’ history major/history buff, married to a history teacher) rambling, you seem unable to address these core points.
JMJ
micky2 said,
November 8, 2007 at 1:00 pm
JMJ said;
“You make no exception for that and therefore undermine your entire argument.”
Jersey ! Do actually read other peoples post ? Or do you constanly try to wing it on BS?
Anti has made a whole list of exceptions, and he himself has said;
“Also, not reading what I’ve written puts us in the embarrassing postion of again having to point out to you that I’ve already said what you think I did not. To wit: it is obviously not legal or lawful to poison others, via pollution or anything else, and it is precisely tort law that protects against that, as I said. Furthermore, it is not legal to poison because poisoning is an infringment upon the unalienable right to life.”
JMJ said;
Authoritarianism??? Heck, you reject any kind of civic stewardship.
You are unimformed or have a two second attention span.
I have read all of Antis posts, and what you say above is a lie. There are numerous examples of him speaking for civic or public stewardship, but retaining that seems difficult for you.
JMJ said;
Can we get back to reality for one moment here? ”
Only if you read the posts.
You just want the last word Jersey, thats whayt it looks like from here.
Everything has been addressed over and over and over. And you keep asking the same questions a little later as if there never was a past.
Talk about reality ? Get some.
Jersey McJones said,
November 8, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I read his posts. They are tiringly tangental
JMJ.
micky2 said,
November 8, 2007 at 2:12 pm
You must really think people are stupid. Which is why you are so convinced we must act like a herd of sheep. But as an individual you are smarter than the rest.
Anyone can see that you either did not read the posts or did not comprehend them.
If you did either you would not say the things you say.
You have been slammed ( weve been slamming before your boys at WWF) with answers and acurate information that answers your questions and even put your accusations and theories to rest.
Now , you now me, right ?
Just give me the word and I will dig up and show to you all the times you got shut down.
antisocialist said,
November 8, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Mr. McJones wrote: > I’m sorry, I find it simplistic, unrealistic, and constructionist – which I find appallingly small-minded.
You don’t need to be sorry, Mr. McJones. Of course, it also means that you find the Declaration of Independence, with its explicits espousal of those very rights, to also be “simplistic, unrealistic, and constructionist” – which you “find appallingly small-minded,” and for that you may or may not need to be sorry — that is not for me to determine. But didn’t I read somewhere that you are a Ron Paul supporter? Perhaps I’m incorrect, and you do not like Ron Paul. But if you do, he is a stated capitalist, libertarian, and, in his words, “advocate of the unalienable right to life, liberty, and property.” I challenge you to go back through and read even a small handful of the quotes I’ve provided for you above, from the framers of the Constitution, and you will see that you also find these men “appallingly small-minded”; for it is indisputable that the best theoreticians among them believed in our unalienable right to life. Indeed, as I’ve stated several times now, the very word “rights” — as in Bill of Rights — presupposes both property and the word unalienable; those are part of the very definition of the term, imminently so, which word, incidentally, I notice you still haven’t bothered to define; and so I will provide you again with their definition:
“Rights are moral-political precepts which define and sanction the individuals freedom of action in a political context. All rights rest upon the fact that man survives by means of reason. Rights are rights to the actions necessary for the preservation of a rational being. Only an entity with a conceptual faculty has judgment on which to act, volition with which to select goals, and intelligence …”
That is why even the mention of the word “rights” presupposes “property” and “unalienable.” Because rights are a direct outgrowth of the human faculty of reason; reason is the means by which humans survive.
Mr. McJones wrote: > Nothing personal, but you asked.
Indeed. You needn’t justify yourself.
Mr. McJones wrote: > It sounds like the epitemology [sic] of a spoiled, rich, white, libertarian teenager.
By “epitemology” I take it you mean “epistemology.” And by “epistemology” I take it you mean psychology or politics, since epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with theories of knowledge and the source of knowledge, not politics. Either way, I’m neither rich, nor spoiled, nor white, nor libertarian, nor a teenager. In fact, I’m a bartender, and I come from a purely blue-collar background. My father was a hard-rock miner, and my mother a short-order cook. I have nine brother and four sisters. None of which changes the fact that my life is my own and only my own, and not yours or anyone else’s, much as you wish it were so. Nor does it change the fact that I’m an individuated being and so are you. The fact that you think my life, without my say in the matter, does belong to others — now that’s what I call truly appalling.
Mr. McJones wrote: > There are limits on all rights, and those limits are the various borders between individuals. You make no exception for that and therefore undermine your entire argument.
On the countrary, as I’ve already said three different times now. You do yourself a disservice in not reading what I’ve written. You also once again put us in the embarrassing position of having to point out that what I said is exactly what you said I haven’t said: namely, that “your rights, my rights, everybody’s rights stop where another’s begin.” It is in this way that rights are compossible, i.e. have “limits.” The obligation that rights impose upon our neighbors are of a negative kind: they must abstain from infringing upon our rights, and we theirs. That is why rights are also known as “negative rights.”
Mr. McJones wrote: > Authoritarianism???
Yes!!!
Mr. McJones wrote: > Heck, you reject any kind of civic stewardship.
I do? Well, considering how consistently you’ve misread what I’ve written, I can only be so convinced that that’s what I think. But I’ll tell you what: you sign that, have it notarized, and I’ll take it under consideration.
Mr. McJones wrote: > Don’t get sleazy on me!
As a rich, spoiled, libertarian teenager, sleaze, I’m afraid, is part of my nature.
Mr. McJones wrote: > I never said that! Jesus man, get real.
Okay.
Mr. McJones wrote: > I’ms [sic] saying that without the envirment,[sic] life, liberty and property are moot! [sic]
Property is the environment. The only alternative to private ownership is public or government ownership.
Mr. McJones wrote: > Oh no, not the rightwing-code “slavery” analogy.
Actually, it’s not an “analogy,” and it’s neither rightwing nor left. If you doubt the veracity of that, take a look at this, which is what happens when you outlaw private ownership, as you espouse, and the unalienable right to life: http://www.muzeumkomunismu.cz/
Mr. McJones wrote: > When you pollute the environment, you pollute it for everyone – you infringe on other peoples’ rights to life, liberty and property.
Exactly. That’s a very fair paraphrase of what I’ve said all along, yes. But I thought you didn’t believe that people had those rights? Or maybe I’m quibbling. Anyway, that’s precisely why and how it falls within the proper jurisdiction of tort law.
Mr. McJones wrote: > Without spending fifteen paragraphs obfusgating [sic] the subject with our Forefathers, can you explain to me what you don’t get about that?
Nothing at all. As I said, that’s a fair paraphrase of my very words. That’s how free societies deal with so-called externalities. You, on the other hand, have not bothered to answer my repeated questions from way back about why pollution is far, far less in our technological society than it is in developing and non-developed countries, almost all of which are government-controlled, and which governments, like you, don’t believe that private property is an unalienable right. Nor have you answered why technological advances have flourished under freedom and private property.
Mr. McJones wrote: > And also, since you think all comes down to the individual, what possible intellectual hurdle are you climbing to avert the notion that therefore corporations have no rights
Corporations do have rights, as I’ve said — specifically, the owners, who are individuals; as such they are, like you and I, bound by the rule of law, which is of course predicated upon the rights of each. Your right, my right, everyone’s right stops where another’s begin. You may once again be confusing capitalism with mercantilism, or protectionism, both of which I obviously reject, for the same reason I reject all other forms of collectivism.
Mr. McJones wrote: > and I’m an ol’ history major/history buff, married to a history teacher
Well, frankly, that makes your misreading of American history all the more egregious.
Mr McJones wrote: > For all your intellectual (psuedo, in my opinion ,,,) rambling, you seem unable to address these core points.
In fact, I’ve addressed them repeatedly, and have, perforce, repeatedly re-pointed them out to you. As I’ve just done again here. Interestingly enough, I’ve lost count with you as well of how many specific “core points,” to borrow your felicitous phrase, that I’ve brought up which you haven’t addressed.
But I suppose that to a towering intellectual such as yourself, this is purely a pseudo matter.
micky2 said,
November 8, 2007 at 3:24 pm
JMJ said;
“The fact is that you can control the quality of staff, but you can’t control the cheapness of patrons, Micky. That’s why pooling. Most servers get that.”
You as much about the restaraunt business as a rock, its plain to see.
Would you like to explain to me ratios of food cost to production ?
Would you like to explain to me how to apply measurements to cost control ?
Would you like to explain to me the corner stones of establishing staff moral ?
Would you like to explain to me how sales ratios create a servers viability. ( they will never ever be the same as you say they will)
Professionals as myself do not work in houses that pool tips for one very good reason.
We are salesmen, the more food we sell, the higher the tab, the higher the tip.
I did not spend all the time I did in school and training across the country so some shmuck can leech off of me.
Tell me where the incentive is to do better than the next guy when your efforts get spread out across the room for everyone else to take credit for ?
If you worked as car salesman and you constantly had to share your commision with less productive salesmen I doubt you would continue to work there.
Certain players get paid more for their talents such as in football. Do you belive professional players should all pool there contracts/income ?
I’m not as big a fan as you but I’ve seen a team get carried by two or three guys while the others are idiots
micky2 said,
November 8, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Seeing as you have had some bad experiences with cheap customers does not surprise me.
Did it ever occur to you that they were not cheap untill they met you ?
And was that fair to everyone else if pooling is so great ?
micky2 said,
November 8, 2007 at 3:45 pm
JMJ said;
“Perhaps you’re not working for very good hirers.”
Has it occured to you that I have hired more waiters in my life than you have probably ever met ?
And none of them not one ever said he would only take the job if pooling were policy.
As a matter of fact I have seen dozens of waiters walk out during interviews once they found out pooling was policy.
When I put on that tux and the charm and I WILL make you spend money !
I will make your date successful.
I will make you and others come back.
My gratuity has always been far above the average, why should I share it with you or anyone else ?
Have you ever had a following of customers that go to whatever house you are working at ? simply because you are there ?
I bring clientel to a house when they hire me, I bring the house business, not just serve it !
And I am even offerd more in wages than other waiters because YES ! I AM THAT GOOD !
I have in many cases made more in one week than anyone else in the restaraunt, even more than the chef or the mangment.
I get what I earn as it should be for anyone. Can you argue with that ?
micky2 said,
November 8, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Heres a little more food (not organic) for thought.
Comments about global warming. ( By John Coleman, founder of the Weather channel }http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1922411/posts
It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.
Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild “scientific” scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minutes documentary segment.
I do not oppose environmentalism. I do not oppose the political positions of either party. However, Global Warming, ie Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you “believe in.” It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won’t believe a me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it.
I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.
In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped. The sky is not falling. And, natural cycles and drifts in climate are as much if not more responsible for any climate changes underway. I strongly believe that the next twenty years are equally as likely to see a cooling trend as they are to see a warming trend.
Jersey McJones said,
November 8, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Pooling is common practice, Micky. Some people like it, some don’t. If you have a small, strong, steady, mature team, it works well. I imagine in the case of larger operations, where you have a lot of turnover and a variety of workers, it may not work as well. Whatever. The point remains the same. Tip Pooling is not a good argument against socialism.
Again, as for Global Warming, I’ll go with the thousands of scientists who concur that it is most likely anthropogenic and could be quite disaterous,.
JMJ
micky2 said,
November 8, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Its also most likely that you are wrong, that works out about the same doesnt it ?
JMJ said;
“Tip Pooling is not a good argument against socialism.”
They are the same principle and the same practice, a perfect examplke of wealth redistribution and how it fails the individual who actually produces. And even those who dont.
And as far as gerbil warming goes. I will go with past and present evidence,historical trends and cycles that have all been proven to be accurate guages of our climates activity.
I will go with the thousands of scientist who also concur that its a scam.
You wont be right unless it happens to level Gore says it will.
History dictates my favor.
As opposed to chicken little.
micky2 said,
November 8, 2007 at 5:52 pm
By the way, since you didnt answer one of my questions I could only come to the conclusion you are stumped or ashamed to do so.
micky2 said,
November 8, 2007 at 6:32 pm
JMJ said;
If you have a small, strong, steady, mature team, it works well.”
” IF ” is the key word. And then even ” IF ” you have small team the practice is just as unfair no matter what size group you have.
Oncer again Jersey, you fail to grasp the difference beteween real experience and fact and your opinion.
Twice now I have been hired as a trouble shooter for newly opened houses.
Both started with a floor standard of pooling. They had bickering and resentment and suspicion of servers hiding tips.
I explained to these rookies that their problems were the result of pooling. Plain and simple. They did away with it in both houses and are still functioning that way.
Gladstones 4 Fish in Newport beach Ca. and RJs Rib Joint in Irvine Ca. Both owned by Grace inc. at the time.
Tell me, once again I’ll ask you . How do you think if one of the most valuable players in the NFL would feel if he had to share his salary and royalties from endorsements with everyone else on the team or the whole league for that matter ?
micky2 said,
November 8, 2007 at 7:16 pm
?
Jersey McJones said,
November 9, 2007 at 7:53 am
They do, Micky, albeit indirectly. The NFL is socialism in action.
JMJ
Jersey McJones said,
November 9, 2007 at 8:11 am
Antisocialist,
“… italso means that you find the Declaration of Independence, with its explicits espousal of those very rights, to also be “simplistic, unrealistic, and constructionist” – which you “find appallingly small-minded,” and for that you may or may not need to be sorry — that is not for me to determine.”
No. I’m sorry to have to call your arguments simplistic. I don’t want to offend you. Oh, and the DoI is not American law. It was the document that decalred our independence from the British Empire. You do know that, right?
“But didn’t I read somewhere that you are a Ron Paul supporter?”
Hell no! I think he’s nuts. I just happen to agree with him about the war and war powers in general.
“I challenge you to go back through and read even a small handful of the quotes I’ve provided for you above, from the framers of the Constitution,…”
You don’t have to. I already have. Many times over. If you did, you’d know that the framers were not anarchic loonies who believed that all rights are absolute.
“By “epitemology” I take it you mean “epistemology.””
Yes. Duh. I misspelled the word.
“And by “epistemology” I take it you mean psychology or politics, since epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with theories of knowledge and the source of knowledge, not politics.”
Now that’s just stupid. Of course politics fit into that! Another way of looking at “epistemology” is “worldview.” If you can’t fit politics into that, than you’re just another pedantic Micky.
“Either way, I’m neither rich, nor spoiled, nor white, nor libertarian, nor a teenager.”
I didn’t say you were, pedantic Anti. I said your epistemology is like that of a libertarian – the political assuasion of spoiled, rich, white teenagers.
“…“your rights, my rights, everybody’s rights stop where another’s begin.” It is in this way that rights are compossible, i.e. have “limits.” The obligation that rights impose upon our neighbors are of a negative kind: they must abstain from infringing upon our rights, and we theirs. That is why rights are also known as “negative rights.””
And that’s why the people have the right to regulate pollution. Thank you.
“Property is the environment. The only alternative to private ownership is public or government ownership.”
And that’s why the people have the right to regulate pollution. Thank you
“…that’s precisely why and how it falls within the proper jurisdiction of tort law.”
Tort law??? How the hell is evry single person in the US supposed to sue every single polluter??? That’s insane. That’s why we have a friggin’ government! To tend to our general welfare! And if you can do one, then of course you can do the other! You can sue – AND you can regulate! It’s basically the same thing and justified for the same reasons. What don’t you get about that?
“You, on the other hand, have not bothered to answer my repeated questions from way back about why pollution is far, far less in our technological society than it is in developing and non-developed countries, almost all of which are government-controlled, and which governments, like you, don’t believe that private property is an unalienable right. Nor have you answered why technological advances have flourished under freedom and private property.”
Look, you’re takling in circles. First, what other countries do is not under our control. So let’s forget about that for now. Make up your mind – either there are limits to rights or not. You can’t have it both ways. That’s an old libertarian scam – “Government can do nothing, but it will do some things.” It makes no sense.
“Corporations do have rights, as I’ve said — specifically, the owners, who are individuals;”
No. Either the people have rights or not. Corporations are pieces of paper. They are not people.
You are one confued dude.
JMJ
micky2 said,
November 9, 2007 at 8:21 am
You’re so full of it !
Thats as good as saying, ” well kinda, in a way”
I could just as easly say its capitalism at work. But in far greater proportions,” albiet indirecly.” And direcly. That would be provable and true.
The only purpose that statement of yours served was to show that you have an incredibly weak arguement.
Thats like me saying that indirectly I affected a newspaper boys life by not buying a copy of the NYT.
When your arguement gets that desparate its time to give it up.
Seriously, from one man to another.
micky2 said,
November 9, 2007 at 9:05 am
JMJ said;
“Either the people have rights or not. Corporations are pieces of paper. They are not people.”
Yea, and your paycheck is just a piece of paper. Unfortunatley, it would not exist had it not been for you.
Talk about minutia and pedantic !
I guess we cant say that individuals humans are not what stands as a foundation for anything viable and tangible in a capitalistic society right ?
We must give credit down to the molecular level ?
Corporations and the contracts that hold them together are representative of agreements between individuals ( with individual rights) .
After incorporation , things are corporate as a collective. To have a collective means you must have two or more “individuals” in concert with the same goal. Needless to say,(but I will) No matter how many individuals stand to make a corporation, it is still impossible without the individual.
The guy who always rallys the cry ” are we all in this together ?
Is usually the guy who cant do anything for himself.
And thinks by some grand delusion that we should all scratch each others back, no matter what.
What a shame that there are so many people who choose to believe that its everyones responsability to be responable for everyone responsabilities.
Sick.
If one moonbat dies, shouldnt all the others die with him?
Jersey McJones said,
November 9, 2007 at 11:46 am
Micky, man you have issues.
On corporations: I believe that corporations are not people, they are simply a framework of organization. Because of this, I believe that all corporate taxation should be repealed, something I’m sure you’d agree with. Yes, all taxes are on transactions, not people (which is another reason there is no such a thing as a Death Tax as death is not a financial transaction), but the beneficiaries of corporate tranactions are in fact people, so the taxes should be on the profit of the people in the corporation, not the corporation itself. If these people choose to reinvest profit into the corporation then they are forfeiting immediate profit and therefore should not pay taxes on that internal transaction. In fact there should be no taxation on any such internal transaction, be it by individuals or organizations. That would make us save more, invest more, and be more internationally competitive, without regressive flat-taxation like consumption and VAT taxes, though there is a place for them as well. Also, a corporation does not have to be composed of apparent people. It’s done all the time. These purely paper entites, or shells, exist to launder money, hide it from taxation offshore, etc. These should be outright banned. And because a corporation is not in fact people itself, it should not be allowed to shield people from wrongdoing. Rather than suing corporations for malfeasance, civil suits should be directed at the people in the corporations who do wrong, and not the corporations themselves, as that is unfair to the other people in the corporation and their consumers who have done no wrong. On the other hand, if the corporation in and of itself is intrinsic to a wrongdoing, as Eron was, then it’s profits should be availed as compensatory.
Do you agree? And do you see the logical consistency of my opinion on this matter?
JMJ
micky2 said,
November 9, 2007 at 12:23 pm
You can try to play it any way you want.
Who pays those taxes ? Who produces the dollars to make it all possible ? Pieces of paper ?
What a stinking load of crap !
It is the individual that is the sole element of any composition.
Be it corporate or a lemon aid stand.
That what this debate is all about !
Not your intepretation of the constitution or the realm and purpose of a corporation.
Gerbil warming is a scam with no real purpose other than global wealth redistribution and to feed greddy politicians and corporate thieves. Not mention the millions in grants that moonbat scientist get for telling the left anything they want to hear.
And you talk about obfuscating ? Hah ! Give me a break !
When are you and the moonbats ever going to realize that we are alot smarter than you think we are ?
You have been pounded on this issue to the point where your last line of defense is to try and put it so many different contexts that it doesnt even have a thing to do with the scam of the century.
Its as always Jersey. You think your opinion is Gospel on this matter . When the bottom line is you have not one shred of eveidence that should compele me or anyone else to start changing our lives and pay through the nose for a bunch of crap we dont need .
You can only argue gerbil warming from an emotional point and perspective. And a future prediction.
You cant argue pollution. (Its always been there)
You cant argue climate change.(its always been there)
You cant argue that America cleans up better than any other country. ( because it always has)
We are actually more ecologically balanced now than we were 30 years ago.
These are all facts that can and have been proven.
You have nothing.
micky2 said,
November 9, 2007 at 12:49 pm
I am a professional in a”all fields of foodservice and the restaraunt business.
I spent 3 years in college studiying Rest.management and culinary arts.
I have certificates in Dining room sevice and supervision, fine art in culinary prep, ice carving, vegetable carving, sugar works, tallow sculpture, cake decorating,buffet prep and presentation, banquet services and organization, nutrition and menu planning, cost control, human resources developement, meat processing, disease and contamination prevention, sanitation, and identifying food born disease.
I have an apprenticship with Chef Fred Hellekes at the Third floor in Waikiki.
” Winner of the “Chef D` Cuisine 8 years in a row.
Elected Hawaiis best pastry chef 3 years in arow.
I have an apprenticship with Suegfred Wiegend.
He is now running the culinary arts dept at the university of Hawaii.
I have managed restaraunts, didning rooms and kitchens from N.Y. to L.A. in some of the most prestigious houses there are.
I have made breakfast for Nixon, served Burt Reynolds, Loni Anderson, Tom Selleck, Richard Dawson, Jim Neighbors, Elton John, Lou Rawls and two Saudi princess.
And you think you who has worked in one restaraunt in his whole life can tell me how to run one ?
No my good man, it is not me with the issues !
YOu most honestly and seriously need your head examined !
I have an apprenticship with Chef Horst Urban.
micky2 said,
November 9, 2007 at 12:53 pm
These two were supposed to be together, sorry about the typo.
“I have an apprenticship with Chef Horst Urban.
Elected Hawaiis best pastry chef 3 years in arow.”
Jersey McJones said,
November 9, 2007 at 1:49 pm
“You have nothing.”
Just thousands of scientists. While you have the words of idiots, whack jobs, conflicted interests, and a handful of scientists. If have I nothing, you have a negative.
Intereestingly enough, it looks like you and I have something in common! I worked for Paul Erhardt, aka Chef Tell, and his wife Bunny (she was some character!), many years ago when they were operating a small gourmet seafood production facility in upstate New York, among his many other endeavors. He was Nixon’s chef or something like that, as I recall. Did you know him? The place was called Sealion Seafood (which I believe no longer exists), had a trout farm, and we did smoking, prepping, packing and such. I pulled one of my many hernias working for him unloading frozen whole (except for the fins) tunas the size of friggin’ VW Beetles! I remember eating smoked tuna, salmon, trout, peppered shark,…. mmmmmmmmmm… Man that place was cool. I wasn’t there very long though. That hernia was a bad one, and the commute was brutal. He had that place in the middle of nowhere. Good people, though. I heard he died a few days ago. Very sad. He wasn’t all that old. Auf wiedersehen und viel glueck, Paul! Small world.
JMJ
Jersey McJones said,
November 9, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Ya’ know, if you ate some of that seafood back around 1989-90, you may well have eaten something that I smoked, packed, or otherwise handled! (hehehe)
JMJ
micky2 said,
November 9, 2007 at 4:23 pm
I prepared a banquet for Nixon in Hawaii, and personally made his meal under the eye of the secret service. I was 18 years old, performing my apprenticship at the Hawaiian Regent Hotel, home to “The Third Floor”
17 years ago I was in Riverside , so probably not.
We get more fresh Ahi ( TUNA) in Hawaii second only to Japan.
I prefer mine raw “Sashimi” style ,not to be confused with “Sushi” as most idiots do.
Sushi is a style and method of preparation, not a dish or particular food.
Every now and then I will spring for some saute`d in a simple beur blanc.
My biggest seller at “The Bistro” on the slopes of Diamond Head Crater in Waikiki was my” House Blackend Ahi.”
A cube of 35.00 a lb ahi, no more than 4 to 5 hours old would be rolled in a bed of red, green and black crushed peppercorns with garlic and lemon zest. After being saute`d for only 45 seconds to 1 minute on each side it would be sliced uniformly and placed on a bed of fresh endive and sprayed with a mist of extra virgin olive oil, then served.
This by the way, was all done at the table in front of the customer.
I doubt that I ever touched what sounds like rank crap you dragged around on a warehouse floor.
JMJ said;
:Just thousands of scientists. While you have the words of idiots, whack jobs, conflicted interests, and a handful of scientists. If have I nothing, you have a negative.”
No, Jersey, I also have “thousands of scientist” That squares that =0
I could say you have the words of” idiots ” That squares that.=0
I could also say you have ” whack jobs” That squares that.=0
I could say that you have “conflicted interests.” That squares that. =0
So with those 4 claims, that would apply equaly to both sides , and simply because it is an opinion of yours means that it doesnt mean anything and aint worth squat !
Also, two years ago the prediction by gerbil warming freaks was that we would get an unusually large amount of hurricanes.
It didnt happen.
———————————————————————————————————————
“Following the intense activity of the 2005 season, forecasts predicted the 2006 season would be very active, though not as active as 2005. However, in 2006, a rapidly-forming El Niño event, combined with the pervasive presence of the Saharan Air Layer over the tropical Atlantic and a steady presence of a robust secondary high related to the Azores high centered around Bermuda, contributed to a slow season and all tropical cyclone activity ceasing after October 2 2006
——————————————————————————————————————–
The freaks also said the same thing this year.
——————————————————————————————————————–
First system1 formed: May 9, 2007
Active systems1: None
Total named storms: 14
Total hurricanes: 5
Major hurricanes (Cat. 3+): 2
——————————————————————————————————————–
I have documented hard fact evidence of a cycle that has repeated itself for centuries.
Why and how did I get this evidence ?
Because it already happened, which makes it REALITY.
It has happened over and over. And CAN BE PROVEN !
And there are documents and hard core proof of its existance that N O B O D Y can deny. Its actually something that has happened before time and time again. And all meterologists records confirm this to be undeniable fact.
And you moonbats think now its going to change.
You only have predictions which are negative only untill and if they take place.
And the predictions you have made, well… They failed. Look above you.
If you knocked on my door and tried to sell me this line of crap my door would shut before your ass would hit the sidewalk.
Or before my Great Dane would rip off your head.
Or the pug would rip off your foot.
micky2 said,
November 9, 2007 at 5:05 pm
My Hemalayan Siamese might even take shot at you.
micky2 said,
November 9, 2007 at 5:08 pm
And the chickens
micky2 said,
November 9, 2007 at 5:10 pm
And the geckos
Jersey McJones said,
November 9, 2007 at 6:45 pm
“I doubt that I ever touched what sounds like rank crap you dragged around on a warehouse floor.”
Oh man, that was a cheap shot! All I was saying is that I worked for a famous chef’s gourmet seafood plant. Gimme a break. Chef Tell, man! I was just trying to relate. Hell, I would LOVE to try some of your “House Blackend Ahi!” I just know that would be fantastic! I would DIE for that dish! (God, I wish my wife enjoyed fine cuisine – how the hell does a classically educated woman prefer hamburgers over sashimi??? – and ten stay fit??? It’s like I’m doomed to gain weight, even eating raw fish!)
I also prefer sashimi. I love fish. I wish I could remember the name, but I also did prep work for some “famous” gay chef from San Fran when I was in L.A. in 1987-88. Everyone picked on us for eating uncooked food, and some people goofed on me for hanging out with the “gay guy,” but he was a great chef and he, like you I suppose, knew that good food is it’s own reward – sometimes leaving it alone is the best course (gotta love puns).
Micky, you have to lighten up. We’re both American men, and we both have good taste in food. Is that so bad?
Look, I agree that there is a lot of debate about Global Warming. All I’m saying is ‘hedge your bets and recognize that pollution, by definition, is bad.’ Is that also so bad?
Peace, JMJ
micky2 said,
November 9, 2007 at 7:33 pm
I got your piece.
micky2 said,
November 9, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Nah, its cool jersey.
I was just playing the snooty snotty waiter.
Just pretend that “Stewy “from “Family guy” said all that to you while in a tux.
Untill again grasshopper -)
Jersey McJones said,
November 9, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Okay man. Til next time! (hehehe) 😉
JMJ
William said,
November 13, 2007 at 2:14 am
Essentially the problem with this issue is this: conservatives take a position generally based on politics (the War on Gore) and often suffer from a lack of information. Liberals jump on the hippie band wagon and similarly know very little of the science so you have these two groups reacting to each other rather than data.
Information sources is a problem for conservatives. You won’t find many of their blogs linked to standard main stream media sources (AP, Reuters, etc..) – they get their ‘information’ through the filter of ‘Christian conservative’ news organizations like WorldNetDaily, CBN, Cybercast, Fox – where you’ll see ads for Ann Coulter hate books.
It’s too bad most Americans are so scientifically and research illiterate to carry on a debate of this issue. The physical evidence is so overwhelming, it causes conservatives to champion skeptics who often are elderly professor emeritus types not at all on the cutting edge of research.
micky2 said,
November 13, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Where is this evidence that us illiterate folk are missing William ?
Please enligten me.
Did you bother to read some of the very informative post above ? It doesnt sound like it.
This debate here on this thread is the most scientically and literate one I have ever experienced anywhere. Could you direct me to a more complete and thorough debate somewhere ?
Besides that William theres another aspect to this and thats the “hustle factor”
Its a scam. And it does not take rocket scientist to figure it out. Just a little history.
The founder of the weather channel may be a little more qualified than you to make a judgement.
Heres a little more food (not organic) for thought.
Comments about global warming. ( By John Coleman, founder of the Weather channel }http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1922411/posts
It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.
Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild “scientific” scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minutes documentary segment.
I do not oppose environmentalism. I do not oppose the political positions of either party. However, Global Warming, ie Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you “believe in.” It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won’t believe a me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it.
I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.
In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped. The sky is not falling. And, natural cycles and drifts in climate are as much if not more responsible for any climate changes underway. I strongly believe that the next twenty years are equally as likely to see a cooling trend as they are to see a warming trend.
Post a Comment

Whether or not sensitive weapons technology was moved to Syria is a hotly disputed question in the intelligence community. James Clapper, now the Director of National Intelligence and formerly the director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, said in 2003 that he believed materials had been moved out of Iraq in the months before the war and cited satellite imagery.

If the Bashar al-Assad regime falls, and should the securing of the chemical and biological stockpiles of Syria be necessary, what would be the effect if some of those materials and munitions bear Iraqi markings?

As Sada told the New York Sun, two Iraqi Airways Boeings were converted to cargo planes by removing the seats, and special Republican Guard units loaded the planes with chemical weapons materials.

There were 56 flights disguised as a relief effort after a 2002 Syrian dam collapse.

The IBD article also mentions Israeli General Yaalon’s assertions, and those of John Shaw regarding Russian assistance in the form of former KGB General Primakov:

There were also truck convoys into Syria. Sada’s comments came more than a month after Israel’s top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam “transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.”

Both Israeli and U.S. intelligence observed large truck convoys leaving Iraq and entering Syria in the weeks and months before Operation Iraqi Freedom, John Shaw, former deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, told a private conference of former weapons inspectors and intelligence experts held in Arlington, Va., in 2006.

According to Shaw, ex-Russian intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov, a KGB general with long-standing ties to Saddam, went to Iraq in December 2002 and stayed until just before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

Anticipating the invasion, his job was to supervise the removal of such weapons and erase as much evidence of Russian involvement as possible.

An interesting statement from Brian Sayers, the director of government relations for the Syria Support Group:

We believe that if the United States does not act urgently, there is a real risk of a political vacuum in Syria, including the possibility of a dispersion of chemical weapons to rogue groups such as Hezbollah.”

What of a regime such as Saddam Hussein’s in Iraq that was suspected of actively attempting to peddle such weapons?

Should these suspicions surrounding Iraq’s possible pre-invasion transfer of its remaining chemical stockpile be confirmed, the silence being heard in the media regarding them will have been deafening.

*************************************************************

Just in case folks still wanted to debate the existence of Syria’s stockpile, I think we might have our answer. How many carry Iraqi markings? How many, Russian?

So, with this, one with any sense could see that by Saddam not making this transfer evident it only reinforced his enemies perception he still possess the weapons.This is not absolutely confirm-able, but makes good sense in the light of Saddams strategy in projecting strength to his enemies.

Had anyone one known he shipped them off he would be vulnerable to attacks by enemies.

Saddam confessed to FBI interrogator Piro that this charade projecting possesion was his best deterrent against Iranian and American invasion

Minute by minute, additional information concerning the terror attack in Benghazi that left Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty and an additional civil servant dead is coming to light. A new report by Fox News’ Catherine Herridge reveals that a mere two days after the deadly siege on our diplomatic outpost in Libya on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, officials from the FBI and National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) each gave briefings on Capitol Hill in which they confirmed that the evidence supported al Qaeda and al Qaeda-affiliates were the ones responsible for the attack.

Watch the report below:When one considers the timeline of events, juxtaposing intelligence agencies’ confirmation that the attack was brought to bear by al Qaeda and its affiliates and was not simply a spontaneous ”flash mob” spawned by a low-budget YouTube video, the picture appears grim for President Obama.

Recall that on the same day as the FBI and NCTC briefings (September 13), administration officials were still peddling the narrative that a video critical of Islam was the catalyst for the attack. Also recall that on September 25, Obama took to the floor of the UN and in a lengthy speech, linked the carnage in Benghazi to that same video no less than six times.

The Fox report informs that the FBI and NCTC assessment of the events in Benghazi were based on “intercepts that included individuals believed to have participated in the attack” and who had openly rejoiced at the devastation they had waged. TheBlaze of course also reported on the string of emails sent to the administration from the pro-al Qaeda organization Ansar al-Sharia a mere two hours after the siege in Benghazi in which the group claimed credit for the attack.

Today is just a small standard batch of hate mail from leftists. Being a leftist means getting as far into the gutter as possible. Like in the movie “Animal Farm,” one can look at the animals and the leftists and not be ale to tell which was which.

With that, here is a slice of August hate mail.

“Carl
crawford@hotmail.com

Absolutely fantastic piece, we were laughing our heads off! I have e-mailed this to everybody… Please keep these coming. Perhaps your new tagline should read "consummate oven-dodging baby-baby man Eric Golub will hiss and spit his way through his own feces" weeee…Please do not stop with the satire! Please please please please : ) this is funnier than anything I could've ever imagined … oh my I peed a little…”

Analysis: Oven-dodging? Nothing like a pro-Holocaust reference to start the day. The reference to bodily functions was a nice finishing touch, like a vinaigrette on a leftist salad. Keep it classy, Carl.

“Terrey
clarkservice007@gmail.com
Hi, forgive me…. I don't live in America so don't know anything about you… I just read your piece /// Barack Obama and Harry Reid's broken liberal souls/// is what you wrote supposed to be some weird comedy piece? Truly you sound deluded and a total fruit loop.”

Analysis: This fellow got off to a good start when he admitted “I don’t live in America so don’t know anything.” I can forgive him for not being born in the greatest nation on Earth, but not for flapping his gums.”

“Kyle
kyleaustinwalker@gmail.com
I found your article on Obama's "Broken Soul" to be the most biased and ignorant piece I have ever had the misfortune of reading. I am not in support of him either, make no mistake, but you are almost on the caliber of Fox News with your hateful one sided commentary.”

Analysis: Fox News is the highest rated cable news network. I guess he thinks a majority of Americans are bigots. I am an opinion writer. I am supposed to be biased. So in my less than humble biased opinion, this fellow is an imbecile.

“Greg
gregpill@gmail.com
why are you such a twisted dick? Your childhood must have been awful.”

Analysis: I had a friend who had to drive himself to the hospital with a Twisted testicle. He voted Peace and Freedom, so I do not see any correlation between having one’s appendage out of whack and voting patterns. Now the brain is a different story, based on modern liberalism. Of course my childhood was awful. Have you ever been to Long Island?

Say it with me everyone. These are liberals. This is how they behave.

eric

I gotta tell you Eric.
I did not own a computer 5-6 years ago.
The original intent was to help my sons studies because like many kids today they dont read books because the pages are to heavy to turn, he was regressing terribly.
Your blog,the first I ever visited 5-6 years ago after we got that computer was responsible for opening my eyes to just how much was wrong with politics, our country…

… AND PEOPLE !

In these last few years I’ve visited hundreds if not thousands of blogs and venues that allow dialogue and will confess I can and have been at times very very nasty, personal and mean.
Although I’m in my 50s and you’re noticeably younger at first sight in person, you’ve been the inspiration thats made me back away from bad behavior and hit my restart button. (more often than not)
The point I’m getting at is that when myself and others have gone profane, vulgar, awry and personal at certain blogs and as a result traffic there decreased because because of meaningless content. Sometimes at one point I would apologize and ask everyone to cooperate in solution searching and reaching agreements if possible in a civil humane manner.
And I’m sorry, I try like hell not to be partisan on this issue because I’m no better when I get pi$$ed.
But I’ll be SOB if the majority of the time its not a moonbat that destroys the civil tempo my request created in no less than a couple days later at the most.
As and addict and liberal who recovered from both simultaneously I know for a fact this behavior comes from emotions unchecked that foster the idea ” if I can humiliate or hurt your feelings I’m right”.
Which is very convenient when in denial or fending off intervention only intended to help me.

Liberalism was a learned behavior for me.
Till this day my Mother (still is) and her new husband are die hard moonbats.
My last trip to the neighbor island to visit them was three days of hell as I had to keep listening to what f******* idiots Conservatives were and how Bush caused all our problems. (although theres an unwritten rule we dont talk politics among family)
Since I began blogging they both had no idea how much more informed I was than them about the political and global issues we face . I guess they thought I blogged to exchange recipes and just shoot the breeze.
Finally, after 3 days of name calling I snapped.
Without profanity or personal insults I downloaded a few points in history into their heads that are documented fact. The CRA, The New Deal, etc.
All of a sudden, according to my own family I’m some f-ing A hole who has nothing better to do than play on my computer all day.
They were astonished to hear that there are blogs that actually pay for my participation.
I showed them the marathon debate on this blog that you, Jersey, The Anti Socialist ,a couple others, and myself had on global warming/environmentalism a few years ago.
Neither mom nor hubby had any idea that the facts disclosed in that debate actually exist. (Too much John Stewart & MSNBC)
Its an excellent read if anyone wants to see civil debate and the standard on just how it should be done.

They dont talk politics around me anymore.
Which is a shame.
Because that only shows an exact example of why we cant get anything done in this country.
The difference, the way I see it, is this.
Liberals think more with the heart. Thats fine.
But unless theres a system in place that makes those heartfelt intentions possible….

State Subsidized Housing… in this case WHY ?
===============================================

“The state subsidizes some of the units, so there’s a qualification that they must meet.”

As a general guideline, potential gap group buyers must earn a minimum of 84 thousand dollars a year. A single person can’t make more than 102 thousand dollars annually, and two or more buyers’ incomes can’t exceed 114 thousand dollars. Other restrictions apply, as well.”

I’m still trying to figure out who the asshats are that thought people making more than 80 large a year needed state subsidized housing.

STAY TUNED

Here we go.
I swear, this shits just getting way outta hand.

http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2008/Testimony/SB2294_CPH_02-06-08_late.pdf
February 5, 2008
Honorable Russell Kokubun, Chair,
and Members of the Committee on
Commerce, Consumer Affairs, and
Affordable Housing
Hawaii State Senate
State Capitol
Honolulu, Hawaii 96813
Dear Chair Kokubun and Members:
Subject: In Support of Senate Bill No. 2294
“This is to express my strong support for Senate Bill (S.B.) No. 2294 relating to Kakaako.
S.B. 2294 seeks to require that 50 percent of the floor area in planned development project
constructed in the Kakaako Community Development district be set aside as reserved housing
units for low- and moderate-income households.”

“low and moderate incomes “?

My wife and I dont pull down 80 thousand dollars a year and we bought our own place with no help whatsoever !

Recently blogging for me has taken a turn. I don’t know if its me or if I’ve just given up trying to have constructive arguments that bring some agreement or consensus.

Dont get me wrong. I’m famous for week-long potty mouth pissing matches that are nothing more than a one-upmanship of whom is the bigger asshole and have absolutely nothing to do with the topic. Used to be there was a regular basis where topics got discussed to a point where it was obvious that two people of different ideologies at least cared about reaching some agreement. Today it seems there’s not much left to do but criticize, make jokes, mockery, and reflect on the most absurd administration I’ve ever seen.

Theres no point in explaining the failures of socialism, oversized government, it’s over reach into the private sector, lack of individualism, the perils of collectivism… it’s all a waste of time. It seems non of that matters to any of my opposition. Where it used to be argued that these things were not taking place, now, instead, they’re being argued as the answer.

I’m tired of trying to fight while it seems the other side is just wringing their hands together waiting for utopia oblivious to any conversation being needed.

Is it just me or has it all boiled down to my purpose being nothing more than to make these people aware in the crudest terms just how fucking stupid they are and their choice was ?
I’ve often said that every so often there comes along a generation that thinks they can make socialism and/or communism work because everyone before them had it wrong. I believe were in the midst of one of these generations because it seems that no amount of education to the failures of the past matters to these people. Where did they come from ? Dont tell me Bush’s policies produced them because even with two very expensive but necessary wars and Katrina it still wasnt an eight years that was all that bad deserving this 180 degree turn in our country’s direction.
There is no hope in this presidents vision. There is no long-term ideal that guarantees us any stability be it financially or our national security.
Everything just seems to be reactionary to problems that are none of his making.
That in a sense is bullshit.
Things have only gotten worse halfway thru this mans run and I have a feeling his supporters are tired of hearing “I told ya so’ or are just victims of their own ignorant pride and are still clicking Birkenstocks and wishing for Kansas.
Which, if true, it seems has rendered conversations lately to be reduced on a more frequent level to that of nothing more than pointing out the flawed thinking behind ones beliefs instead of what we can do to stop what I see as total madness.
Have the masses gone melancholy with complacency or do these assholes actually believe the shit were watching will work ?
Is it just me or has the landscape of the discourse changed to where argument is just not necessary anymore ?

And it came to pass in the Age of Insanity that the people of the land called America, having lost their morals, their initiative, and their will to defend their liberties, chose as their Supreme Leader that person known as “The One”.

He emerged from the vapors with a message that had no meaning; but He hypnotized the people telling them, “I am sent to save you. My lack of experience, my questionable ethics, my monstrous ego, and my association with evil doers are of no consequence. For I shall save you with Hope and Change.

Go, therefore, and proclaim throughout the land that he who preceded me is evil, that he has defiled the nation, and that all he has built must be destroyed.”
And the people rejoiced, for even though they knew not what “The One” would do, He had promised that it was good; and they believed.

And “The One” said “We live in the greatest country in the world. Help me change everything about it!” And the people said, “Hallelujah! Change is good!”

Then He said, “We are going to tax the rich fat-cats.”
And the people said “Sock it to them!”

“And redistribute their wealth.”
And the people said, “Show us the money!”

And then He said, “Redistribution of wealth is good for everybody”

And Joe the plumber asked, “Are you kidding me? You’re going to steal my money and give it to the deadbeats??”
And “The One” ridiculed and taunted him, and Joe’s personal records were hacked and publicized.

One lone reporter asked, “Isn’t that Marxist policy?”
And she was banished from the kingdom!

Then a citizen asked, “With no foreign relations experience and having zero military experience or knowledge, how will you deal with radical terrorists?”

And “The One” said, “Simple. I shall sit with them and talk with them and show them how nice we really are; and they will forget that they ever wanted to kill us all!”

And the people said, “Hallelujah!! We are safe at last, and we can beat our weapons into free cars for the people!”

Then “The One” said, “I shall give 95% of you lower taxes.”

And one, lone voice said, “But 40% of us don’t pay ANY taxes.”

So “The One” said, “Then I shall give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!”

And He said, “I shall mandate employer- funded health care for EVERY worker and raise the minimum wage. And I shall give every person unlimited healthcare and medicine and transportation to the clinics.”

And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and ever-higher taxes, raised their prices and laid off workers. Others simply gave up and went out of
business and the economy sank like unto a rock dropped from a cliff. The banking industry was destroyed. Manufacturing slowed to a crawl. And more of the people were without a means of support.

Then “The One” said, “I am the “The One” – The Messiah – and I’m here to save you! We shall just print more money so everyone will have enough!”

But our foreign trading partners said unto Him, “Wait a minute. Your dollar is not worth a pile of camel dung! You will have to pay more…”

And the people said, “Wait a minute. That is unfair!!”

And the world said, “Neither are these other idiotic programs you have embraced. Lo, you have become a Socialist state and a second-rate power. Now you shall play by our rules!”

And the people cried out, “Alas, alas!! What have wedone?”

But yea verily, it was too late. The people set upon “The One” and spat upon him and stoned him, and his name was dung. And the once mighty nation was
no more; and the once proud people were without sustenance or shelter or hope. And the Change “The One” had given them was as like unto a poison that had destroyed them and like a whirlwind that consumed all that they had built.

And the people beat their chests in despair and cried out in anguish, “Give us back our nation and our pride and our hope!!” But it was too late, and their homeland was no more.

You may think this is a fairy tale, but it’s not.
It’s happening RIGHT NOW !!!